O ========= THIS IS THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.1.1 (DRAFT) 12 JUN 1990  =========     INTRODUCTIOND    This `jargon file' is a collection of slang terms used by various! subcultures of computer hackers.    C    The original `jargon file' was a collection of hacker slang from ? technical cultures including 1) the MIT AI Lab, 2) the Stanford C AI lab, 3) the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, 3) Carnegie- C Mellon University, 4) Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Some entries B dated back to the early 1970s. This version was published as _The_ Hacker's_Dictionary_ in 1983.   ?    This new version casts a wider net than the old jargon file; ? its aim is to cover not just AI but all the technical computing @ cultures wherein the true hacker-nature is manifested. More than= half of the entries now derive from USENET and the C and UNIX  communities.  @     The present maintainers of the jargon file are Guy L. Steele= (gls@think.com) and Eric S. Raymond (eric@snark.uu.net). Send = all additions, corrections and correspondence relating to the   jargon file to jargon@think.com.     CREDITS F    The original jargon file was compiled by Guy L. Steele Jr., RaphaelE Finkel, Don Woods, and Mark Crispin, with assistance from the MIT and < Stanford AI communities and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.D Some contributions were submitted via the ARPAnet from miscellaneousD sites. The `old' jargon file was last revised in 1983; its revisionsC are all un-numbered and may be collectively considered `Version 1'.   D    Version 2.1: the jargon file reorganization and massive additionsD were by Eric S. Raymond, approved by Guy Steele. Many items of UNIX,C C, USENET and microcomputer-based slang were added at that time (as B well as Appendix A, The Untimely Demise of Mabel The Monkey). SomeD obsolescent usages (mostly PDP-10 derived) were moved to appendix B.  ?    Our thanks to all the USENETters who contributed entries and C encouragement. Special thanks to our Scandinavian correspondent Per B Lindberg (per@front.se), author of the remarkable Swedish language@ 'zine _Hackerbladet_, for bring FOO! comics to our attention andB smuggling the IBM hacker underground's own baby jargon file out to; us. Also special gratitude to ace hacker/linguist Joe Keane B (jkg@osc.osc.com) for helping us improve the pronunciation guides.   FORMAT FOR NEW ENTRIESB    Try to conform to the format already being used -- 70 character? lines, 3-character indentations, pronunciations in parentheses, B etymologies in brackets, single-space after def'n numbers and word8 classes, etc. Stick to the standard ASCII character set.  E    We are looking to expand the file's range of technical specialties E covered. There are doubtless rich veins of jargon yet untapped in the B scientific computing, graphics, and networking hacker communities;C also in numerical analysis, computer architectures and VLSI design, C language design, and many other related fields. Send us your slang!   C    We are *not* interested in straight technical terms explained by ? textbooks or technical dictionaries unless an entry illuminates D "underground" meanings or aspects not covered by official histories.A We are also not interested in "joke" entries -- there is a lot of D humor in the file but it must flow naturally out of the explanations& of what hackers do and how they think.  @    It is OK to submit items of slang you have originated if they< have spread to the point of being used by people who are notA personally acquainted with you. We prefer items to be attested by 0 independent submission from two different sites.  A    The slang file will be regularly maintained and re-posted from B now on and will include a version number. Read it, pass it around,& contribute -- this is *your* monument!        NOTES ON JARGON CONSTRUCTIONB    There are some standard methods of jargonification which becameF established quite early (i.e before 1970), spreading from such sourcesC as the MIT Model Railroad Club, the PDP-1 SPACEWAR hackers and John 3 McCarthy's original crew of LISPers. These include:   E Verb doubling: a standard construction is to double a verb and use it @    as a comment on what the implied subject does.  Often used toA    terminate a conversation.  Typical examples involve WIN, LOSE,     HACK, FLAME, BARF, CHOMP:. 	"The disk heads just crashed."  "Lose, lose."? 	"Mostly he just talked about his @#!!$% crock.  Flame, flame." ' 	"Boy, what a bagbiter!  Chomp, chomp!"   E Soundalike slang: similar to Cockney rhyming slang.  Often made up on .    the spur of the moment.  Standard examples: 	Boston Globe => Boston Glob- 	Herald American => Horrid (Harried) American ! 	New York Times => New York Slime  	Prime Time => Slime Time 6 	government property - do not duplicate (seen on keys), 		=> government duplicity - do not propagateB    Often the substitution will be made in such a way as to slip in    a standard jargon word:) 	Dr. Dobb's Journal => Dr. Frob's Journal + 	Margaret Jacks Hall => Marginal Hacks Hall  	Data General => Dirty Genitals   B The -P convention: turning a word into a question by appending theE    syllable "P"; from the LISP convention of appending the letter "P" C    to denote a predicate (a Boolean-valued function).  The question F    should expect a yes/no answer, though it needn't.  (See T and NIL.)@      At dinnertime: "Foodp?"  "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!"@      "State-of-the-world-P?"  (Straight) "I'm about to go home."1 			      (Humorous) "Yes, the world has a state." >    [One of the best of these is a Gosperism (i.e., due to BillD    Gosper).  When we were at a Chinese restaurant, he wanted to knowB    whether someone would like to share with him a two-person-sized9    bowl of soup.  His inquiry was: "Split-p soup?" --GLS]   E Peculiar nouns: MIT AI hackers love to take various words and add the F    wrong endings to them to make nouns and verbs, often by extending a0    standard rule to nonuniform cases.  Examples: 		porous => porosity 		generous => generosity! 	Ergo:	mysterious => mysteriosity  		ferrous => ferrocity  9 	Other examples: winnitude, disgustitude, hackification.       B    Also, note that all nouns can be verbed.  eg: "All nouns can beD    verbed", "I'll mouse it up", "Hang on while I clipboard it over",E    "I'm grepping the files". English as a whole is already heading in A    this direction (towards pure-positional grammar like Chinese); /    hackers are simply a bit ahead of the curve.   C Spoken inarticulations: Words such as "mumble", "sigh", and "groan" D    are spoken in places where their referent might more naturally be@    used.  It has been suggested that this usage derives from theD    impossibility of representing such noises in a com link.  Another?    expression sometimes heard is "complain!", meaning "I have a     complaint!"  @ Hacker speech style: Features extremely precise diction, carefulE    word choice, a relatively large working vocabulary, and relatively B    little use of contractions or "street slang". Dry humor, irony,C    puns, and a mildly flippant attitude are highly valued -- but an C    underlying seriousness and intelligence is essential. One should ?    use just enough jargon to communicate precisely and identify E    oneself as "in the culture"; overuse and a breathless, excessively A    gung-ho attitude are considered tacky and the mark of a loser.   C Hacker speech style (a variety of the precisionist English normally B spoken by scientists, design engineers, and academics in technical? fields) is fairly constant everywhere. Of the four other listed E constructions, verb doubling and peculiar noun formations have become E quite general; but rhyming slang is still largely confined to MIT and B other large universities, and the P convention is found only where LISPers flourish.   G    One final note. Many words in hacker jargon have to be understood as J members of sets of comparatives. This is especially true of the adjectivesJ and nouns used to describe the beauty and functional quality of code. Here% is an approximately correct spectrum:   7 	MONSTROSITY BRAIN-DAMAGE  BUG  SCREW  LOSE  MISFEATURE 6 	CROCK  KLUGE  HACK  WIN  FEATURE  ELEGANCE PERFECTION  $ The last is never actually attained.   PRONUNCIATION GUIDE   A    The pronunciation keys in the jargon listing use the following     simple system:   ?    1) Syllables are hyphen-separated, except that an apostrophe <       or back-apostrophe follows each accented syllable (the?       back apostrophe marks a secondary accent in some words of        four or more syllables).  B    2) Consonants are pronounced as in American English. The letter@       "g" is always hard (as in "got" rather than "giant"); "ch"A       is soft ("church" rather than "chemist"). The letter "j" is ?       the sound that occurs twice in "judge". The letter "s" is ?       always as in "pass", never a z sound (but it is sometimes =       doubled at the end of syllables to emphasize this). The @       digraph `dh' is the th of `these clothes', not of `thick'.  )     3) Vowels are represented as follows:   
 	a	back, that  	ah	father, palm
 	ar	far, mark  	aw	flaw, caught 	ay	bake, rain 	e	less, men
 	ee	easy, ski  	eir	their, software 	i	trip, hit
 	ie	life, sky  	o	cot, top 
 	oh	flow, sew  	oo	loot, through  	or	more, door 	ow	out, how
 	oy	boy, coin 
 	uh	but, some  	u	put, foot 	y	yet 	yoo	few@ 	[y]oo	oo with optional `fronting' as in `news' (noos or nyoos).  N An at-sign is used for the "schwa" sound of unstressed or occluded vowels (theF one that is often written with an upside-down "e"). The schwa vowel isK omitted in syllables containing vocalic r, l, m or n; that is, "kitten" and . "color" would be rendered "kit'n" and "kul'r".   THE JARGON ITSELF   
 		       =  =   ? @BEGIN [primarily CMU] with @End, used humorously in writing to @    indicate a context or to remark on the surrounded text.  From5    the SCRIBE command of the same name.  For example:  	@Begin(Flame)7 	Predicate logic is the only good programming language. 7 	Anyone who would use anything else is an idiot.  Also, 2 	computers should be tredecimal instead of binary. 	@End(Flame)A    On USENET, this construct would more frequently be rendered as     <FLAME ON> and <FLAME OFF>.   			= A =  E ABEND (ab'end) n. Abnormal termination (of software); crash; lossage. D    Derives from an error message on the IBM 360, but has passed into    more general use.  E ACK (ak) interj. 1. [from the ASCII mnemonic for 000110] Acknowledge. A    Used to register one's presence (compare mainstream "Yo!"). An B    appropriate response to PING. 2. [prob. from _Bloom_County_] An8    exclamation of surprised disgust, esp. in "Oop ack!".    Semi-humorous.   D ADGER (adj'r) [UCLA] v. To make a bonehead move that could have beenC    forseen with a slight amount of mental effort, i.e., "He started :    removing files and promptly adgered the whole project".  A AD-HOCKERY (ad-hok'@r-ee) [Purdue] n. Gratuitous assumptions made B    inside certain programs, esp. expert systems, which lead to theD    appearance of semi-intelligent behavior, but are in fact entirely
    arbitrary.   C ADVENT (ad'vent) n. The prototypical computer adventure game, first D    implemented on the PDP-10 by MIT hackers Dave Lebling, Mark BlankE    and Don R. Woods as a demo for a natural-language parser they were B    hacking on at the time.  Now better known as Adventure, but theF    TOPS-10 operating system only permitted 6-letter filenames. "A huge$    green fierce snake bars the way!"  C ALIASING SCREW (ayl'ee-@-sing) [C programmers] n. A class of subtle ?    programming errors which can arise in code that does dynamic @    allocation via malloc(3).  If more than one pointer addressesB    (`aliases for') a given hunk of storage, it may happen that theA    storage is freed through one alias and then referenced through A    another, leading to subtle (and possibly intermittent) lossage B    depending on the state and the allocation history of the mallocD    ARENA. Avoidable by use of allocation strategies that never alias>    allocated core. See also PRECEDENCE SCREW, SMASH THE STACK,0    FANDANGO ON CORE, MEMORY LEAK, OVERRUN SCREW.  7 ALT BIT (ahlt bit) [from alternate?] adj. See META BIT.   A ANGLE BRACKETS (ang'@l brak'@ts) [primarily MIT] n. Either of the '    characters "<" and ">".  See BROKET.   D APP (ap) n. Short for `application program', as opposed to a systemsE    program. What systems vendors are forever chasing developers to do C    for their environments so they can sell more boxes. Hackers tend C    not to think of the things they themselves run as apps; thus, in @    hacker parlance the term excludes compilers, program editors,A    games, and messaging systems, though a user would consider all -    those apps. Oppose TOOL, OPERATING SYSTEM.   G ARENA (a-ree'nuh) [UNIX] n. The area of memory attached to a process by B    brk(2) and sbrk(2) and used by malloc(3) as dynamic storage. So=    named from a semi-mythical "malloc: corrupt arena" message @    supposedly emitted when some early versions became terminallyF    confused. See OVERRUN SCREW, ALIASING SCREW, MEMORY LEAK, SMASH THE	    STACK.   A ARG (arg) n. Abbreviation for "argument" (to a function), used so :    often as to have become a new word. Compare PARAM, VAR.  @ ASBESTOS LONGJOHNS (as-bes't@s long'jons), UNDIES (uhn'dees), orE    OVERCOAT (o'vr-koht) n. Metaphoric garments often donned by USENET @    posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit    FLAMAGE.   D ASCII (as'kee) Common slang names for ASCII characters are collectedB    here. See individual entries for BANG, CLOSE, EXCL, OPEN, QUES,E    SEMI, SHRIEK, SPLAT, TWIDDLE, WHAT, WOW, and YIU-SHANG WHOLE FISH. E    This list is snarfed from USENET circa 1983. Single characters are D    listed in ASCII order, followed by multiples. For each character,D    "official" names appear first, then others in order of popularity    (more or less).  H     !   exclamation point, exclamation, bang, factorial, excl, ball-bat,%         smash, shriek, cuss, wow, hey <     "   double quote, quote, dirk, literal mark, rabbit ears@     #   pound sign, number sign, sharp, crunch, mesh, hex, hash,E         flash, grid, pig-pen, tictactoe, scratchmark, octothorp (from          Bell System)F     $   dollar sign, currency symbol, buck, cash, string (from BASIC),.         escape (from TOPS-10), ding, big-money3     %   percent sign, percent, mod, double-oh-seven ;     &   ampersand, amper, and, address (from C), andpersand E     '   apostrophe, single quote, quote, prime, tick, irk, pop, spark E     ()  open/close parenthesis, left/right parenthesis, paren/thesis, C         parenthisey, unparenthisey, open/close round bracket, ears,          so/already, wax/waneH     *   asterisk, star, splat, wildcard, gear, dingle, mult ("multiply")1     +   plus sign, plus, add, cross, intersection      ,   comma, tail &     -   hyphen, dash, minus sign, wormG     .   period, dot, decimal point, radix point, point, full stop, spot D     /   virgule, slash, stroke, slant, diagonal, solidus, over, slat     :   colon, two-spot      ;   semicolon, semi, hybrid E     <>  angle brackets, brokets, left/right angle, less/greater than, F         read from/write to, from/into, from/toward, in/out, comesfrom/G         gozinta (all from UNIX), funnel, brokets, crunch/zap, suck/blow 8     =   equal sign, equals, quadrathorp, gets, half-meshA     ?   question mark, whatmark, what, wildchar, ques, huh, quark D     @   at sign, at, each, vortex, whorl, whirlpool, cyclone, snail,         ape, cat     V   vee, book H     []  square brackets, left/right bracket, bracket/unbracket, bra/ket,          square/unsquare, U turnsJ     \   reversed virgule, backslash, bash, backslant, backwhack, backslat,         escape (from UNIX)C     ^   circumflex, caret, uparrow, hat, chevron, sharkfin, to ("to          the power of"), fangJ     _   underscore, underline, underbar, under, score, backarrow, flatwormJ     `   grave accent, grave, backquote, left quote, open quote, backprime,>         unapostrophe, backspark, birk, blugle, back tick, pushI     {}  open/close brace, left/right brace, brace/unbrace, curly bracket, 5         curly/uncurly, leftit/rytit, embrace/bracelet A     |   vertical bar, bar, or, v-bar, spike, pipe, gozinta, thru, '         pipesinta (last four from UNIX) C     ~   tilde, squiggle, approx, wiggle, twiddle, swung dash, enyayu  @ ASSEMBLER (as'em-bler) 1. A program translator that allows humanE    beings to generate machine code using mnemonics and symbolic nameshE    for memory locations rather than raw binary; distinguished from an1E    HLL (q.v.) by the fact that a single assembler step generally mapsiF    to a single machine instruction (see also LANGUAGES OF CHOICE). 2.AC    NANOBOT which is a physical REPLICATOR.  (This is the "official" 5    term, coined by Eric Drexler; see NANOTECHNOLOGY).t  : AUTOMAGICALLY (aw-toh-maj'i-klee, aw-toh-maj'i-kl-ee) adv.@    Automatically, but in a way which, for some reason (typicallyB    because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too=    trivial), I don't feel like explaining to you.  See MAGIC.eC    Example: Some programs which produce XGP output files spool themt    automagically.i   			= B =  < BACKBONE CABAL (bak'bohn k@-bawl') n. Semi-mythical group ofF    large-site administrators who pushed through the GREAT RENAMING andD    reined in the chaos of USENET during most of the 1980s. The cabal>    mailing list disbanded in late 1988 after a bitter internal(    catfight, but the net hardly noticed.  F BACK DOOR (bak dor) n. A hole in the security of a system deliberatelyE    left in place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for thisnD    is not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, comeD    out of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by fieldF    service or the vendor's maintenance programmers. Historically, backE    doors have often lurked in systems longer than any one expected or F    planned, and a few have become widely known. The famous RTM worm of;    late 1988, for example, used a back door in the BSD UNIXaE    sendmail(1) utility. See also IRON BOX, CRACKER, WORM, LOGIC BOMB.t  ? BACKGROUND (bak'grownd) v.,adj. A task running in background iseC    detached from the terminal where it was started and running at aoF    lower priority (oppose FOREGROUND). Nowadays this term is primarilyF    associated with UNIX, but it was appears first to have been used inF    this sense on OS/360. By extension, to do a task "in background" is=    to do it whenever FOREGROUND matters are not claiming yourf>    undivided attention, and "to background" something means to7    relegate it to a lower priority. Compare SLOPSUCKER.t  A BAD THING (bad thing) n. Something which can't possibly result insF    improvement of the subject.  This term is always capitalized, as inE    "Replacing all of the 9600 baud modems with bicycle couriers woulda&    be a Bad Thing." Oppose GOOD THING.  E BAGBITER (bag'biet-@r) 1. n. Equipment or program that fails, usuallymD    intermittently.  2. BAGBITING: adj. Failing hardware or software.D    "This bagbiting system won't let me get out of SPACEWAR."  Usage:B    verges on obscenity.  Grammatically separable; one may speak ofF    "biting the bag".  Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS,    BARFUCIOUS.  C BAMF (bamf) [from comix] interj. Notional sound made by a person orsD    object teleporting in or out of the hearer's vicinity. Often usedD    in VIRTUAL REALITY (q.v.) electronic fora when a character wishes'    to make a dramatic entrance or exit.   F BANG (bang) 1. n. Common alternate name for EXCL (q.v.), especially at@    CMU and when used in pronouncing a BANG PATH (q.v.) in spokenE    hackish.  See SHRIEK. 2. interj. An exclamation signifying roughly D    "I have achieved enlightenment!" or "The dynamite has cleared outC    my brain!". Often used to acknowledge that one has perpetrated ai6    THINKO immediately after one has been called on it.  B BANG PATH (bang path) n. An old-style UUCP electronic-mail addressE    specifying hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to thefE    addressee, so called because each hop is signified by a BANG sign. F    Thus the path "...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me" directs correspondentsB    to route their mail to machine bigsite (presumably a well-known?    location accessible to everybody) and from there through thej@    machine "foovax" to the account of user "me" on "barbox". See     INTERNET ADDRESS and NETWORK.  D BAR (bar) 1. The second metasyntactic variable, after FOO and before?    BAZ.  "Suppose we have two functions FOO and BAR.  FOO calls 8    BAR..."  2.  Often appended to FOO to produce FOOBAR.  F BARF (barf) [from the "layman" slang, meaning "vomit"] 1. interj. TermC    of disgust.  See BLETCH.  2. v. Choke, as on input.  May mean to D    give an error message.  "The function `=' compares two fixnums or;    two flonums, and barfs on anything else."  3. BARFULOUS,oF    BARFUCIOUS: adj. Said of something which would make anyone barf, if.    only for aesthetic reasons. See CHOKE, GAG.  A BAUD BARF (bawd barf) n. The garbage one gets on the monitor when A    using a modem connection with some protocol setting (esp. line F    speed) incorrect, or when someone picks up a voice extension on theD    same line, or when really bad line noise disrupts the connection.  D BAZ (baz) 1. The third metasyntactic variable, after FOO and BAR andC    before QUX.  "Suppose we have three functions FOO, BAR, and BAZ.hE    FOO calls BAR, which calls BAZ..." 2. Occasionally appended to FOO,    to produce FOOBAZ.   D BELLS AND WHISTLES (belz and hwis'@lz) [by analogy with locomotives]E    n. Features added to a program or system to make it more FLAVORFUL C    from a hacker's point of view, without necessarily adding to its D    utility for its primary function. Distinguished from CHROME which     is intended to attract users.  ; BENCHMARK (bench'mark) n. An inaccurate measure of computerSA    performance.  As in "In the computer industry, there are three 3    kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks."v  F BERKLIX (ber'kliks) n.,adj. Contraction of Berkeley UNIX. See BSD. Not@    used at Berkeley itself. [This one, in my experience, is moreF    common among suit-wearers attempting to sound "hip" than hackers --    ESR]s  A BERZERKELY (b@r-zer'klee) [from the name of a now-deceased recordeD    label] n. Humorous, often-used distortion of "Berkeley" used esp.A    to refer to the practices or products of the BSD UNIX hackers.a  D BIG-ENDIAN (big'-en-di-@n) adj. Describes a computer architecture inF    which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, lower byte addresses haveA    higher significance (the word is stored `big-end-first'). MostnA    processors including the IBM 370 family and the PDP-10 and the B    Intel and Motorola microprocessor families and the various RISC=    designs current in 1990 are big-endian. See LITTLE-ENDIAN.o  F BIG IRON (big ie'@rn) n. Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers.  UsedF    generally of number crunching supercomputers such as Crays, but can>    include more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes.A    Believed to have originated in the title of a paper given at aeB    Usenix, "Unix on Big Iron". Term of approval, compare DINOSAUR.  = BIG RED SWITCH (big red swich) [IBM] n. The power switch on aeF    computer, esp. on an IBM-PC where it really is large and red. As in?    "This !@%$% BITTY BOX is hung again, time to hit the big redr    switch".a  E BIGNUMS (big'nuhms) [from Macsyma] n. 1. In backgammon, large numbersr<    on the dice.  2. Multiple-precision (sometimes infinitelyE    extendable) integers and, through analogy, any very large numbers.c@    3. EL CAMINO BIGNUM: El Camino Real, a street through the SanE    Francisco peninsula that originally extended (and still appears inr@    places) all the way to Mexico City.  It was termed "El CaminoF    Double Precision" when someone noted it was a very long street, and>    then "El Camino Bignum" when it was pointed out that it was    hundreds of miles long.  5 BINARY (bie'na-ree) n. The object code for a program.e  < BIT BANG (bit bang) n. Transmission of data on a serial line>    accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit at the>    appropriate times (popular on certain early models of PRIMEF    computers, presumably when UARTs were too expensive; and on archaicF    Z-80 micros with a Zilog PIO but no SIO). The technique is a simpleD    loop with eight OUT, SHIFT, OUT etc for each byte.  Input is moreC    interesting. And full duplex (doing input and output at the sameeD    time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the wannabees.  E BIT BUCKET (bit buhk'@t) n. The great data sink in the sky. Data thatrF    is discarded is said to "go to the bit bucket". On UNIX, often usedD    for /dev/null. Sometimes amplified as THE GREAT BIT BUCKET IN THE    SKY.h  B BIT DECAY (bit d@-kay') n. See SOFTWARE ROT. People with a physicsC    background tend to prefer this one for the analogy with particleh	    decay."  & BIT ROT (bit rot) n. See SOFTWARE ROT.  C BITBLT (bit'blit, bit'belt) n. [from BLT, q.v.] 1. One of a closelyeD    related family of algorithms for moving and copying rectangles ofB    bits between main and display memory on a bit-mapped device, orF    between two areas of either main or display memory (the requirement>    to do the right thing in the case of overlapping source andC    destination rectangles is what makes BitBlt tricky). 2. An earlyhF    experimental bit-mapped terminal at Bell Labs, later commercialized    as the AT&T 5620.  F BITTY BOX (bit'ee boks) n. 1. A computer sufficiently small, primitive@    or incapable as to cause a hacker acute claustrophobia at the:    thought of developing for it. Especially used of small,D    obsolescent, single-tasking-only personal machines like the AtariE    800X, Osborne, Sinclair, VIC-20, or TRS-80. 2. More generally, thenE    opposite of `real computer' (see GET A REAL COMPUTER). Pejorative. '    See also MESS-DOS, TOASTER, and TOY.g  = BIXIE (biks'ee) n. Synonym for EMOTICON used on BIX (the Byte B    Information Exchange); BIXers believe the emoticon was invented	    there.P  D BLAST (blast) v.,n. Synonym for BLT (q.v.), used esp. for large data?    sends over a network or comm line. Opposite of SNARF. Usage:e    uncommon.  F BLAZER (blay'zr) n. Nickname for the Telebit Trailblazer, an expensiveD    but extremely reliable and effective high-speed modem, popular at?    UNIX sites that pass large volumes of EMAIL and USENET news.e  D BLETCH (blech) [from German "brechen", to vomit (?)] 1. interj. TermF    of disgust.  2. BLETCHEROUS: adj. Disgusting in design or function.:    "This keyboard is bletcherous!"  Usage: slightly comic.  D BLINKENLIGHTS (blink'@n-lietz) n. Front-panel diagnostic lights on a;    mainframe CPU.  Derives from the last word of the famousg@    blackletter-Gothic "ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!" notice inA    mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer D    rooms in the English-speaking world. The following text ran: "DasF    computermachine ist nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben.  IstD    easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mitA    spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. DaslD    rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen hans in das pockets muss; relaxenD    und watch das blinkenlichten." This silliness dates back at least?    as far as the London University ATLAS site in the 1960s, butdB    (judging by the idioms) was probably composed by an American at    some still-earlier date.   @ BLOCK (blok) [From computer science usage] 1. vi. To delay whileE    waiting for something.  "We're blocking until everyone gets here."wC    2. in BLOCK ON vt. To block, waiting for (something).  "Lunch iss!    blocked on Phil's arrival."      A BLOCK TRANSFER COMPUTATIONS (blok trans'fer kom-pyoo-tay'shns) n.fB    From the Dr. Who television series: in the show, it referred toD    computations so fiendishly subtle and complex that they could notF    be performed by machines.  Used to refer to any task that should be4    expressible as an algorithm in theory, but isn't.  ? BLOW AWAY (bloh @-way') v. To remove files and directories fromeC    permanant storage with extreme prejudice, generally by accident.s    Oppose NUKE.W  D BLOW OUT (bloh owt) v. Of software, to fail spectacularly; almost as,    serious as CRASH AND BURN. See BLOW PAST.  F BLOW PAST (bloh past) v. To BLOW OUT despite a safeguard.  "The server$    blew past the 5K reserve buffer."  H BLT (blit, belt [very rarely]) v. To transfer a large contiguous packageF    of information from one place to another.  This usage has outlastedC    the PDP-10 BLock Transfer instruction for which it derives.  Sees%    DD, CAT, BLAST, SNARF, Appendix B.h  9 BLUE GLUE (bloo gloo) [IBM] n. IBM's SNA (Systems NetworktD    Architecture) an incredibly losing and bletcherous protocol suiteA    widely favored at commercial shops that don't know any better.     See FEAR AND LOATHING.   E BLUE GOO (bloo goo) n. Term for "police" NANOBOTS intended to preventkD    GRAY GOO (q.v.), denature hazardous waste, destroy pollution, putF    ozone back into the stratosphere, prevent halitosis, and to promote7    truth, justice, and the American way, etc., etc. Seeu    NANOTECHNOLOGY.  ; BNF (bee-en-ef) n. Hacker acronym for `Backus-Naur Form', aaC    metasyntactic notation used to specify the syntax of programmingnA    languages, command sets and the like. Widely used for languageJ?    descriptions but seldom documented anywhere, so that it mustoF    usually be learned by osmosis from other hackers. Consider this BNF    for a postal address:  ?    <postal-address> ::= <name-part> <street-address> <zip-part>n  ;    <name-part> ::= <first-name> [<middle-part>] <last-name>d  "    <middle-part> ::= <middle-name>)                   |  <middle-initial> "."W  =    <street-address> ::= [<apt>] <street-number> <street-name>m  9    <zip-part> ::= <town-name> "," <state-code> <zip-code>I  @    This translates into English as: A postal-address consists of@    a name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a?    zip-code part. A name-part consists of a first-name followed,D    by an optional middle-part followed by a last-name. A middle-part@    consists of either a middle name or a middle initial followed?    by a dot. A street address consists of an optional apartmentgD    specifier followed by a street number, followed by a street name.>    A zip-part consts of a town-name, followed by a state code,C    followed by a zip code. Note that many things such as the format <    of a first-name, apartment specifier or zip-code are left@    unspecified. These are presumed to be obvious from context orD    detailed in another part of the specification the BNF is part of.  B BOA (bo'uh) [IBM] n. Any one of the fat cables that lurk under theD    floor in DINOSAUR PENS. It is rumored within IBM that 370 channel@    cables are limited to 200 feet because beyond that length the    boas get dangerous...  A BOAT ANCHOR (boht an'kr) n. Like DOORSTOP (q.v.) but more severe, >    implies that the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or    useless.   ? BOGOMETER (boh-goh'm@-tr) n. An instrument to measure BOGOSITY,eD    generally a conversational device, as in "my bogometer is readingF    in the red on that idea" or "I think you just bent the needle on my    bogometer".  < BOGON (bo'gon) [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but?    doubtless reinforced by the similarity to "Vogon"] n. 1. TheoC    elementary particle of bogosity (see QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS).  For,E    instance, "the ethernet is emitting bogons again," meaning that it,A    is broken or acting in an erratic or bogus fashion. 2. A querycE    packet sent from a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, havinga?    the reply bit set instead of the query bit.  3. Any bogus orqF    incorrectly formed packet sent on a network.  4. By extension, usedF    to refer metasyntactically to any bogus thing, such as "I'd like toF    go to lunch with you but I've got to go to the weekly staff bogon."  B BOGON FILTER (bo'gon fil'tr) n.  Any device, software or hardware,A    which limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of bogons.eC    Example: "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray andl:    the VAXen and now we're getting fewer dropped packets."  E BOGOSITY (boh-gos-@-tee) n. 1. The degree to which something is BOGUSeB    (q.v.).  At CMU, bogosity is measured with a bogometer; typicalE    use: in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listenerdD    might raise his hand and say, "My bogometer just triggered."  The>    agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat (uL). 2. The9    potential field generated by a bogon flux; see QUANTUMe    BOGODYNAMICS.  E BOGUS (boh'guhs) [WPI, Yale, Stanford] adj. 1. Non-functional.  "YouryD    patches are bogus."  2. Useless.  "OPCON is a bogus program."  3.F    False.  "Your arguments are bogus."  4. Incorrect.  "That algorithmB    is bogus."  5. Silly.  "Stop writing those bogus sagas."  (This?    word seems to have some, but not all, of the connotations ofoD    RANDOM.)  [Etymological note from Lehman/Reid at CMU: "Bogus" wasE    originally used (in this sense) at Princeton, in the late 60s.  Itr?    was used not particularly in the CS department, but all overp<    campus.  It came to Yale, where one of us (Lehman) was anB    undergraduate, and (we assume) elsewhere through the efforts ofB    Princeton alumni who brought the word with them from their almaE    mater.  In the Yale case, the alumnus is Michael Shamos, who was a @    graduate student at Yale and is now a faculty member here.  AA    glossary of bogus words was compiled at Yale when the word was @    first popularized (e.g., autobogophobia: the fear of becoming    bogotified).]  C BOHR BUG (bor buhg) [from quantum physics] n. A repeatable BUG; oneeE    which manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but well-defined +    set of conditions. Antonym of HEISENBUG.   E BOINK (boynk) [USENET] 1. To have sex with; compare BOUNCE, sense #3.dC    2. After the original Peter Korn "Boinkcon" USENET parties, used F    for almost any net social gathering, e.g.  Miniboink, a small boinkE    held by Nancy Gillett in 1988; Minniboink, a Boinkcon in MinnesotaxB    in 1989; Humpdayboinks, Wednesday get-togethers held in the San    Francisco Bay Area.  B BONDAGE-AND-DISCIPLINE LANGUAGE (bon'd@j @n dis'@-plin lang'w@j) AB    language such as Pascal, APL, or Prolog that, though ostensiblyF    general-purpose, is designed so as to enforce an author's theory of>    "right programming" even though said theory is demonstrablyF    inadequate for systems or even vanilla general-purpose programming.    See LANGUAGES OF CHOICE.   E BOOT (boot) [from "by one's bootstraps"] v.,n. To load and initializedC    the operating system on a machine. This usage is no longer slangt@    (having become jargon in the strict sense), but the followingE    variants still are. COLD BOOT: a boot from a power- off condition.jC    WARM BOOT: a reboot with the CPU and all devices already powerede3    up, as after a hardware reset or software crash.   A BOTTLENECKED (bot'l-nekt) adj. 1. Used by hackers specifically topB    describe hardware under which performance is usually limited byB    contention for one particular resource (such as disk, memory orA    processor CLOCKS); see BALANCED. 2. Less often, applied to theGB    software analogue of sense #1, a slow code section or algorithm?    through which all computation must pass (see also HOT SPOT).A  ? BOUNCE (bowns) v. 1. [UNIX] An electronic mail message which is C    undeliverable and returns an error notification to the sender is C    said to `bounce'. See also BOUNCE MESSAGE. 2. [Stanford] To play E    volleyball. "Bounce, bounce! Stop wasting time on the computer andt=    get out to the court!" 3. To engage in sexual intercourse.d  E BOUNCE MESSAGE (bowns mes'@j) [UNIX] n. Notification message returned E    to sender by a site unable to relay EMAIL to the intended INTERNETeB    ADDRESS recipient or the next link in a BANG PATH (see BOUNCE).B    Reasons might include a nonexistent or misspelled username or a>    down relay site.  Bounce messages can themselves fail, with=    occasionally ugly results; see SORCERER'S APPRENTICE MODE.   C BOXEN (bok'sn) pl n. [back-formation from VAXEN] Fanciful plural ofe>    `box' often encountered in the phrase `UNIX boxen', used toD    describe commodity UNIX hardware. The implication is that any two"    UNIX boxen are interchangeable.  A BRAIN-DAMAGED (brayn'dam-@jd) [generalization of "Honeywell BrainhC    Damage" (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certainx@    utter cretinisms in MULTICS] adj. Obviously wrong; CRETINOUS;F    DEMENTED.  There is an implication that the person responsible mustC    have suffered brain damage, because he should have known better.dD    Calling something brain-damaged is really bad; it also implies it    is unusable.1  C BRANCH TO FISHKILL (branch to fish'kill) [IBM, from the location of D    one of their facilities] n. Any unexpected jump in a program thatE    produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See HYPERSPACE.S  @ BREAK (brayk) v. 1. To cause to be broken (in any sense).  "YourA    latest patch to the system broke the TELNET server."  2. (of a ?    program) To stop temporarily, so that it may be examined forgA    debugging purposes.  The place where it stops is a BREAKPOINT.d  F BREAKAGE (brayk'@j) [IBM] n. The extra people that must be added to anA    organization because its master plan has changed; used esp. ofb+    software and hardware development teams.r  C BRITTLE (bri'tl) adj. Said of software that's easily broken.  Often F    describes the results of a research effort that were never intended=    to be robust, but equally can apply commercially developede    software.  B BROADCAST STORM (brod'kast storm) n. An incorrect packet broadcast>    on a network that causes most hosts to respond all at once,B    typically with wrong answers that start the process over again.;    Also called NETWORK MELTDOWN. See also CHERNOBYL PACKET.   @ BROKEN (broh'kn) adj. 1. Not working properly (of programs).  2.A    Behaving strangely; especially (of people), exhibiting extreme     depression.  A BROKET (broh'k@t, broh'ket) [by analogy with "bracket": a "brokensE    bracket"] (primarily Stanford) n. Either of the characters "<" andeB    ">".  (At MIT, and apparently in THE REAL WORLD (q.v.) as well,,    these are usually called ANGLE BRACKETS.)  D BRUTE FORCE AND IGNORANCE (broot fohrs @nd ig'nohr-ans) n. A popularB    design technique at many software houses. Dogmatic adherence toF    design methodologies tends to encourage it. Characteristic of earlyB    LARVAL STAGE programming; unfortunately, many never outgrow it.F    Often abbreviated BFI, as in: "Gak, they used a bubble sort! That's)    strictly from BFI."  Compare BOGOSITY.   A BSD (bee-ess-dee) n. [acronym for Berkeley System Distribution] aBD    family of UNIX versions for the DEC VAX developed by Bill Joy andC    others at UC Berkeley starting around 1980, incorporating TCP/IPgD    networking enhancements and many other features. The BSD versions@    (4.1, 4.2, and 4.3) and commercial versions derived from themA    (SunOS and Mt. Xinu) held the technical lead in the UNIX worldlD    until AT&T's successful standardization efforts after about 1986,4    and are still widely popular. See UNIX, USG UNIX.  F BUCKY BITS (buh'kee bits) [primarily Stanford] n. The bits produced byF    the CTRL and META shift keys on a Stanford (or Knight) keyboard. ItB    is rumored that these were in fact named for Buckminster FullerE    during a period when he was consulting at Stanford. Unfortunately,sD    legend also has it that "Bucky" was Niklaus Wirth's nickname whenB    *he* was consulting at Stanford and that he first suggested theF    idea of the meta key, so its bit was named after him. DOUBLE BUCKY:D    adj. Using both the CTRL and META keys.  "The command to burn all:    LEDs is double bucky F." See also META BIT, COKEBOTTLE.  E BUFFER OVERFLOW (buhf'r oh'vr-floh) n. What typically happens when anwF    OS or application is fed data faster than it can buffer and processC    it. Used metaphorically of human mental processes. Ex. "Sorry, I A    got four phone calls in three minutes last night and lost yourG!    message to a buffer overflow."   D BUG (buhg) [from telephone terminology, "bugs in a telephone cable",F    blamed for noisy lines] n. An unwanted and unintended property of aA    program, esp. one which causes it to malfunction. See FEATURE.c  F BULLETPROOF (bul'@t-proof) adj. Used of an algorithm or implementation=    considered extremely robust; lossage-resistant; capable oftE    correctly recovering from any imaginable exception condition. Thise     is a rare and valued quality.  C BUM (buhm) 1. v. To make highly efficient, either in time or space,nA    often at the expense of clarity.  "I managed to bum three moreiB    instructions."  2. n. A small change to an algorithm to make it3    more efficient.  Usage: somewhat rare. See TUNE.   F BUMP (buhmp) v. Synonym for increment.  Has the same meaning as C's ++B    operator. Used esp. of counter variables, pointers (see POINTERC    ARITHMETIC) and index dummies in for, while, and do-until loops.(  D BURBLE (ber'bl) v. Like FLAME, but connotes that the source is trulyF    clueless and ineffectual (mere flamers can be competent). A term of    deep contempt.y  D BUSY-WAIT (bi'zee-wayt) v. To wait on an event by SPINning through aD    tight or timed-delay loop that checks for the event on each pass,?    as opposed to setting up an interrupt handler and continuingaD    execution on another part of the task. A wasteful technique, bestC    avoided on time-sharing systems where a busy-waiting program may     hog the processor.o  E BUZZ (buhz) v. To run in a very tight loop, perhaps without guaranteer    of getting out. See SPIN.  F BWQ [bee duhb'l-yoo kyoo) [IBM] n. Buzz Word Quotient. Usually roughly%    proportional to BOGOSITY. See TLA.   : BYTESEXUAL (biet-seks'u-@l) adj. Said of hardware, denotesE    willingness to compute or pass data in either BIG ENDIAN or LITTLELB    ENDIAN format (depending, presumably, on a mode bit somewhere).   			= C =  F C (see) n. 1. The third letter of the Latin alphabet. 2. The name of aC    programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie during the earlybC    1970s and first used to implement UNIX (q.v.). So called becausesA    many features derived from an earlier interpreter named 'B' ino@    commemoration of *its* parent, BCPL; before Bjarne StroustrupE    settled the question by designing C++, there was a humorous debateoC    over whether C's successor should be named `D' or 'P'.  C becameeF    immensely popular outside Bell Labs after about 1980 and is now the>    dominant language in systems and microcomputer applications(    programming. See LANGUAGES OF CHOICE.  C CAMBRIDGE NOTATION (kaym'brij no-ta'shn) [LISP] n. The now-standardnC    way of writing LISP expressions as nested lists, with parens andaF    spaces; as opposed to the earlier and technically purer practice ofF    writing full S-expressions with cons dots. Supposedly invented as a@    KLUGE because a full parser for S-expressions would have been    harder to write.c  D CAN (can) v. To abort a job on a time-sharing system. Used esp. whenB    the person doing the deed is an operator, as in CANNED FROM THEC    CONSOLE. Frequently used in an imperative sense, as in "Can thatrB    print job, the LPT just popped a sprocket!". Synymous with GUN.  C CANONICAL (k@-nahn'i-kl) adj. The usual or standard state or manneraB    of something.  A true story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AIE    Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use of jargon.  Over his loudtE    objections, we made a point of using jargon as much as possible in E    his presence, and eventually it began to sink in.  Finally, in onenD    conversation, he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashionB    without thinking.  Steele: "Aha!  We've finally got you talkingD    jargon too!"  Stallman: "What did he say?"  Steele: "He just used%    `canonical' in the canonical way."r  C CASTERS UP MODE (cas'trz uhp mohd) [IBM] n. Yet another synonym forc    `broken' or `down'.  D CAT (cat) [from UNIX cat(1)] v. To spew an entire (notionally large)A    file to the screen or some other output sink without pause; by.F    extension, to dump large amounts of data at an unprepared target or@    with no intention of browsing it carefully. Usage: considered4    silly. Rare outside UNIX sites. See also DD, BLT.  B CATATONIA (kat-@-toh'nee-uh) n. A condition of suspended animation8    in which the system is in a wedged (CATATONIC) state.  ? CDR (ku'dr) [from LISP] v. With "down", to trace down a list ofy<    elements.  "Shall we cdr down the agenda?"  Usage: silly.  D CELL-REPAIR MACHINES (sel r:-peir' m:-sheens') n. An often-discussed@    probable consequence of NANOTECHNOLOGY; NANOBOTS specificallyC    programmed to repair tissue at the cellular level. Possible usesAA    include reversing freezing damage from CRYONICS procedures andh>    correction of mutagen-damaged DNA (including eradication of    retrovirii and oncogenes).e  D CHAD (chad) n. 1. The perforated edge strips on printer paper, afterA    they have been separated from the printed portion. Also calledeE    SELVAGE and PERF. 2. obs. the confetti-like paper bits punched outh8    of cards or paper tape; this was also called `chaff'.  B CHAIN (chayn) [orig. from BASIC's CHAIN statement] v. When used ofD    programming languages, refers to a statement that allows a parentD    executable to hand off execution to a child without going throughF    the OS command interpreter. The state of the parent program is lostC    and there is no returning to it. Though this facility used to be D    common on memory-limited micros and is still widely supported forC    backward compatibility, the jargon usage is semi-obsolescent; inpB    particular most UNIX programmers will think of this as an EXEC.#    Oppose the more modern SUBSHELL.   E CHAR (keir; [rarely] char) n. Shorthand for `character'. Esp. used byb?    C programmers, as `char' is C's typename for character data.d  E CHASE POINTERS (chays uh poyn'tr) v. To go through multiple levels ofnB    indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure.D    Used esp. by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very    common data type.  B CHERNOBYL PACKET (cher-no'b@l pa'k@t) n. An IP Ethergram with bothD    source and destination Ether and IP address set as the respectiveD    broadcast address. So called because it induces NETWORK MELTDOWN.  D CHINESE RAVS (chie'neez ravs) [MIT] n. Pot-stickers. Kuo-teh. Gyoza.E    Oriental dumplings, especially when pan-fried rather than steamed.tE    A favorite hacker appetizer. See ORIENTAL FOOD, STIR-FRIED RANDOM.e  E CHOKE (chohk) vi.  To reject input, often ungracefully.  Examples: "IfF    tried building X, but cpp choked on all those #define's." See BARF,    GAG.o  @ CHOMP (chomp) v. To lose; to chew on something of which more wasC    bitten off than one can.  Probably related to gnashing of teeth.aF    See BAGBITER.  A hand gesture commonly accompanies this, consistingF    of the four fingers held together as if in a mitten or hand puppet,C    and the fingers and thumb open and close rapidly to illustrate ae@    biting action.  The gesture alone means CHOMP CHOMP (see Verb
    Doubling).e  D CHRISTMAS TREE PACKET (krist'm@s tree pa'k@t) n. A packet with every5    single option set for whatever protocol is in use.   F CHROME (krohm) [from automotive slang via wargaming] n. Showy featuresD    added to attract users, but which contribute little or nothing toB    the power of a system. "The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome!"D    Distinguished from BELLS AND WHISTLES by the fact that the former;    are usually added to gratify developers' own desires fori    featurefulness.  @ CHURCH OF THE SUB-GENIUS (cherch @v dh@ suhb-gee'-ny@s) A mutant;    offshoot of DISCORDIANISM launched in 1981 as a spoof ofhD    fundamentalist Christianity by the "Rev." Ivan Stang, a brilliantF    satirist with a gift for promotion. Popular among hackers as a richE    source of bizarre imagery and references such as: "Bob" the divinetB    drilling-equipment salesman, the Benevolent Space Xists and theF    Stark Fist of Removal. Much Sub-Genius theory is concerned with the?    acquisition of the mystical substance or quality of "slack".   D CLASSIC C (klas'ik see) n.  The C programming language as defined inB    the first edition of the book ``The C Programming Language'' by@    ``Brian W.  Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie'' with some smallC    additions.  It is also known as ``K & R C.''  The name came intosA    use during the standardisation process for C by the ANSI X3J11"
    committee.s  @ CLOCKS (kloks) n. Processor logic cycles, so called because eachF    generally corresponds to one clock pulse in the processor's timing.@    The relative execution times of instructions on a machine areD    usually discussed in `clocks' rather than absolute fractions of a
    second.  E CLONE (klohn) n. 1. An exact duplicate, as in "our product is a clone"?    of their product."  2. A shoddy, spurious copy, as in "theiru9    product is a clone of our product." 3. A PC-BUS/ISA oroF    EISA-compatible 80x86 based microcomputer (in-context shorthand forD    "PC clone"). 3. In the construction UNIX CLONE: An OS designed toB    deliver a UNIX-lookalike environment sans UNIX license fees, orB    with additional "mission-critical" features such as support for    real-time programming.d  F CLOSE (klohz) n. Abbreviation for "close (or right) parenthesis", used9    when necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity.  See OPEN.   C CLUSTERGEEKING (kluh'ster-gee`king) [CMU] n. An activity defined bytB    spending more time at a computer cluster doing CS homework than    most people spend breathing.l  ; COBOL FINGERS (koh'bol fing'grs) n. Reported from Sweden, aaF    (hypothetical) disease one might get from programming in COBOL. TheD    language requires extremely voluminous code. Programming too muchF    in COBOL causes the fingers to wear down (by endless typing), untilB    short stubs remain. This malformity is called COBOL FINGERS. "IF    refuse to type in all that source code again, it will give me cobol    fingers!"  D CODE GRINDER (kohd grien'dr) n. 1. A SUIT-wearing minion of the sort?    hired in legion strength by banks and insurance companies toi?    implement payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakablehB    horrors. This is about as far from hackerdom as you can get andD    still touch a computer. Connotes pity. See REAL WORLD. 2. Used ofA    or to a hacker, a really serious slur on the person's creativeg>    ability; connotes a design style characterized by primitive>    technique, rule-boundedness, and utter lack of imagination.  C CODE POLICE (kohd p@-lees') [by analogy with "thought police"] n. A E    mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might burst intoiE    one's office and arrest one for violating style rules. May be usedeC    either "seriously" (to underline a claim that a particular styleoF    violation is dangerous) or (more often) ironically (to suggest thatF    the practice under discussion is condemned mainly by anal-retentive    weenies).  C CODEWALKER (kohd'wok-r) n. A program component that traverses other C    programs for a living. Compilers have codewalkers in their frontw;    ends; so do cross-reference generators and some database =    front-ends. As in "This language extension would require aK    codewalker to implement."  B COKEBOTTLE (kohk'bot-l) n. Any very unusual character.  MIT peopleC    used to complain about the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands ato8    SAIL, and SAIL people complained right back about theD    "altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at MIT. Since the demise ofF    the SPACE-CADET KEYBOARD this is no longer a serious usage, but may>    be invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or#    non-intuitive keystroke command.o  D COME FROM (kuhm fruhm) n. A semi-mythical language construct dual toE    the `go to'; COME FROM <label> would cause the referenced label tobD    act as a sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever reached itD    control would quietly fall through to the statement following theE    COME FROM. COME FROM was first proposed in a Datamation article ineC    1973 that parodied the then-raging `structured programming' warssF    (see CONSIDERED HARMFUL). It was actually implemented for the first;    time seventeen years later, in C-INTERCAL (see INTERCAL,tB    RETROCOMPUTING); knowledgeable observers are still reeling from	    shock.T  > COMPRESS (k@m-pres') [UNIX] v. When used witchout a qualifier,?    generally refers to CRUNCHing of a file using a particular CrE    implementation of Lempel-Ziv compression by James A. Woods et. al.iC    and widely circulated via USENET. Use of CRUNCH (q.v.) itself in )    this sense is rare among UNIX hackers.t  B COMPUTER GEEK (kuhm-pyoo-tr geek) n.  One who eats [computer] bugs?    for a living. One who fulfills all of the dreariest negative A    stereotypes about hackers: an asocial, malodorous, pasty-facedID    monomaniac with all the personality of a cheese grater. Cannot beC    used by outsiders without implied insult to all hackers; compareaD    black-on-black usage of "nigger". A computer geek may be either aF    fundamentally clueless individual or a true-hacker in LARVAL STAGE.?    Also called TURBO NERD, TURBO GEEK. See also CLUSTERGEEKING.s  ? COMPUTRON (kom-pyoo-tron) n. A notional unit of computing powero@    combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensionedA    roughly in instructions-per- sec times megabytes-of-main-storez@    types megabytes-of-mass-storage.  "That machine can't run GNUB    Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!" This term is usually=    used in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungiblelC    commodity good like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See BITTYt(    BOX, GET A REAL COMPUTER, TOY, CRANK.  E CONNECTOR CONSPIRACY (k@-nek'ter k@n-spi'r@h-see) [probably came intot=    prominence with the appearance of the KL-10, none of whoselC    connectors match anything else] n. The tendency of manufacturerseF    (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) to come upA    with new products which don't fit together with the old stuff, E    thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interfaced    devices.   A CONS (kons) [from LISP] 1. v. To add a new element to a list.  2. @    CONS UP: v. To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an    example".  ? CONSIDERED HARMFUL (k@n-si'derd harm'fl) adj. Edsger Dijkstra'saF    infamous March 1968 CACM note, _Goto_Statement_Considered_Harmful_,E    fired the first salvo in the "structured programming" wars. In theeE    years since then a number of both serious papers and parodies haveaD    borne titles of the form "X considered Y" in reference to it. The>    "structured programming" wars eventually blew over with theE    realization that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles hasO*    remained as a persistent minor in-joke.  C COOKIE MONSTER (ku'kee mon'str) n. Any of a family of early (1970s)DC    hacks reported on ITS and elswhere that would lock up either therB    victim's terminal (on a time-sharing machine) or the operator'sA    console (on a batch mainframe), repeatedly demanding "I WANT AeD    COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "HAVE A#    COOKIE" upward. See also WABBIT.t  @ COPYLEFT (kop'ee-left) n. 1. The copyright notice carried by GNUD    EMACS and other Free Software Foundation software granting re-use>    and reproduction rights to all comers. 2. By extension, any5    copyright notice intended to achieve similar aims.d  : CORE (kor) n. Main storage or DRAM. Dates from the days of?    ferrite-core memory; now archaic, but still used in the UNIX.B    community and by old-time hackers or those who would sound like    same.  D CORE DUMP (kor duhmp) n. [from UNIX] 1. Catastrophic program failureF    due to internal error. 2. By extension, used for humans passing out-    or registering extreme shock. Usage: rare..  B CORE WARS (kohr wohrz) n. A game between "assembler" programs in aD    simulated machine, where the objective is to kill your opponent'sD    program by overwriting it. This was popularized by A.K. Dewdney'sD    column in _Scientific_American_. It is rumored that the game is aC    civilized version of an amusement common on pre-MMU multitasking     machines.  E CORGE (korj) n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by MiketD    Galleher and propagated by the Gosmacs documentation. See GRAULT.  ? CP/M (see-pee-em) [Control Program for Microcomputers] An earlyiA    microcomputer OS written by hacker Gary Kildall for Z-80 basedrE    machines, very popular in the late 1970s until virtually wiped outlC    by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM PC in 1981 (legend has itm@    that Kildall's company blew their chance to write the PC's OSE    because Kildall decided to spend the day IBM's reps wanted to meet F    with him enjoying the perfect flying weather in his private plane).B    Many of its features and conventions strongly resemble those ofA    early DEC operating systems such as OS9, RSTS and RSX-11.  SeeP    MS-DOS, OPERATING SYSTEM.  B CRACKER (krak'r) n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined c.D    1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of HACKER,    see definition #6.t  B CRANK (krank) [from automotive slang] v. Verb used to describe theD    performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "ThisC    box cranks about 6 MegaFLOPS, with a burst mode of twice that ona    vectorized operations"t  B CRASH (krash) 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure.  Most oftenB    said of the system (q.v., definition #1), sometimes of magneticD    disk drives.  "Three lusers lost their files in last night's diskD    crash."  A disk crash which entails the read/write heads droppingD    onto the surface of the disks and scraping off the oxide may alsoC    be referred to as a "head crash".  2. v. To fail suddenly.  "HasWD    the system just crashed?"  Also used transitively to indicate the?    cause of the crash (usually a person or a program, or both).-D    "Those idiots playing SPACEWAR crashed the system."  3. SometimesF    said of people hitting the sack after a long HACKING RUN, see GRONK    OUT.   E CRASH AND BURN (krash @n bern) v.,n. A spectacular crash, in the modeh@    of the conclusion of the car chase scene from Steve McQueen's@    "Bullitt".  Sun-3 monitors losing the flyback transformer andC    lightning strikes on VAX-11/780 backplanes are notable crash andf    burn generators.r  ? CRAWLING HORROR (kraw'lng hor'@r) n. Ancient crufty hardware orBC    software that forces beyond the control of the hackers at a site F    refuse to let die. Like DUSTY DECK or GONKULATOR, but connotes thatE    the thing described is not just an irritation but an active menace8F    to health and sanity.  "Mostly we code new stuff in C, but they payF    us to maintain one big Fortran II application from nineteen-sixty-X5    that's a real crawling horror...". Compare WOMBAT.w  D CRAY (kray) n. 1. One of the line of supercomputers designed by Cray)    Research. 2. Any supercomputer at all.l  B CRAYON (krayon) n. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers.  More>    specifically implies a programmer, probably of the CDC ilk,F    probably male, and and almost certainly wearing a tie (irrespectiveD    of gender).  Unicos systems types who have a Unix background tend"    not to be described as crayons.  > CREEPING FEATURITIS (kree'ping fee-ch@r-ie't@s) n. Describes aF    systematic tendency to load more CHROME onto systems at the expence>    of whatever ELEGANCE they may have posessed when originallyB    designed. See FEEPING CREATURITIS.  "You know, the main problem6    with BSD UNIX has always been creeping featuritis".  B CRETIN (kre'tn) 1. n. Congenital LOSER (q.v.).  2. CRETINOUS: adj.>    See BLETCHEROUS and BAGBITING.  Usage: somewhat ad hominem.  @ CRIPPLEWARE (krip'@l-weir) n. SHAREWARE which has some importantF    functionality deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users4    to pay for a working version. See also GUILTWARE.  E CRLF (ker'lif, sometimes krul'lif) n. A carriage return (CR) followedi$    by a line feed (LF).  See TERPRI.  ? CROCK (krok) [from mainstream "crock of shit"] n. 1. An awkwardnB    feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner.E    Example: Using small integers to represent error codes without theuB    program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, UNIXC    make(1)) is a crock.  2. Also, a technique that works acceptablyeE    but which is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least, forAA    example depending on the machine opcodes having particular bit A    patterns so that you can use instructions as data words too; ar;    tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure.e  > CROSS-POST (kros'pohst) [USENET] To post an article to several    newsgroups or topics.  F CRUDWARE (kruhd-weir) n. Pejorative term for the hundreds of megabytesF    of low-quality FREEWARE circulated by user's groups and BBS systemsB    in the micro-hobbyist world. "Yet *another* set of disk catalog)    utilities for MS-DOS?  What crudware!"m  A CRUFTY (kruhf'tee) [from "cruddy"] adj. 1. Poorly built, possiblyeF    overly complex.  "This is standard old crufty DEC software".  HenceC    CRUFT, n. shoddy construction.  2. Unpleasant, especially to thelF    touch, often with encrusted junk.  Like spilled coffee smeared withB    peanut butter and catsup.  Hence CRUFT, n. disgusting mess.  3.D    Generally unpleasant.  CRUFTY or CRUFTIE n. A small crufty objectB    (see FROB); often one which doesn't fit well into the scheme ofC    things.  "A LISP property list is a good place to store crufties C    (or, random cruft)."  [Note: Does CRUFT have anything to do with B    the Cruft Lab at Harvard?  I don't know, though I was a Harvard    student. - GLS]  D CRUFT TOGETHER, CRUFT UP (kruhft too-ge'thr, kruhft uhp) v. To throwC    together something ugly but temporarily workable. Like v. KLUGE,U#    but more pejorative. See CRUFTY.   A CRUNCH (kruhnch) v. 1. To process, usually in a time-consuming or]D    complicated way.  Connotes an essentially trivial operation whichA    is nonetheless painful to perform.  The pain may be due to thehF    triviality being imbedded in a loop from 1 to 1000000000.  "FORTRAND    programs do mostly number crunching."  2. To reduce the size of a@    file by a complicated scheme that produces bit configurationsB    completely unrelated to the original data, such as by a HuffmanB    code.  (The file ends up looking like a paper document would ifC    somebody crunched the paper into a wad.)  Since such compressionM?    usually takes more computations than simpler methods such asKC    counting repeated characters (such as spaces) the term is doublyeB    appropriate.  (This meaning is usually used in the constructionC    "file crunch(ing)" to distinguish it from "number crunch(ing)".)rD    See COMPRESS.  3. n. The character "#".  Usage: used at Xerox and&    CMU, among other places. See ASCII.  B CRUNCHA CRUNCHA CRUNCHA (kruhnchah kruhnchah kruhnchah) interj. An?    encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in >    serious GROVELLING. Also describes a notional sound made by(    grovelling hardware. See WUGGA WUGGA.  E CRYONICS (kry-o'niks) n. The practice of freezing oneself in hopes ofnB    being revived in the future by CELL REPAIR MACHINES. A possibleC    route to technological immortality already taken by 1990 by moreE5    than a handful of persons with terminal illnesses.n   B CTSS (see-tee-ess-ess) n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early>    (1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharingE    operating systems. Cited here because it was ancestral to MULTICS,o    UNIX, and ITS (q.v.).  D CUBING (kyoo'bing) [parallel with "tubing"] v. 1. Hacking on an IPSCD    (Intel Personal SuperComputer) hypercube.  "Louella's gone cubingD    AGAIN!!"  2. An indescribable form of self-torture, see sense #1.  E CUSPY (kuhs'pee) [from the DEC acronym CUSP, for Commonly Used System F    Program, i.e., a utility program used by many people] [WPI] adj. 1.F    (of a program) Well-written.  2. Functionally excellent.  A programB    which performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy.  See    RUDE.  F CYBERPUNK (sie'ber-puhnk) [orig. by SF critic Garder Dozois] n.,adj. AC    subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-makingeF    novel _Neuromancer_. Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers andD    the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about theF    role of computers and hackers in futures in ways hackers have since>    found both irritatingly naive and tremendously stimulating.F    Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived@    but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See CYBERSPACE, ICE,    GO FLATLINE.e  F CYBERSPACE (sie'ber-spays) n. Notional "information-space" loaded withB    visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces calledE    "cyberspace decks"; a characteristic prop of CYBERPUNK SF. At timeuA    of writing (1990) serious efforts to construct VIRTUAL REALITY F    interfaces modelled explicitly on CYBERSPACE are already under way,F    using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular=    TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to outright deny theoC    possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of THE NETWORK.f   			= D =  F DAEMON (day'mun, dee'mun) [archaic form of "demon", which has slightlyC    different connotations (q.v.)] n. A program which is not invokediF    explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) toE    occur.  The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need noteA    be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program willNA    commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitlynF    invoke a daemon).  For example, writing a file on the lpt spooler'sD    directory will invoke the spooling daemon, which prints the file.D    The advantage is that programs which want (in this example) filesE    printed need not compete for access to the lpt.  They simply enternD    their implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do withF    them.  Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, andB    may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals.  Usage:F    DAEMON and DEMON (q.v.) are often used interchangeably, but seem toE    have distinct connotations.  DAEMON was introduced to computing bynB    CTSS people (who pronounced it dee'mon) and used it to refer toB    what is now called a DRAGON or PHANTOM (q.v.).  The meaning andB    pronunciation have drifted, and we think this glossary reflects    current usage.E  * DAY MODE (day mohd) See PHASE (of people).  C DD (dee-dee) [from archaic UNIX dd(1)] v. Equivalent to CAT or BLT.gF    Very rare outside UNIX sites and now nearly obsolescent even there,C    as dd(1) has been DEPRECATED for a long time. Replaced by BLT or     simple English `copy'.   C DEADLOCK (ded'lok) n. A situation wherein two or more processes arei>    unable to proceed because each is waiting for another to doF    something.  A common example is a program communicating to a PTY orA    STY, which may find itself waiting for output from the PTY/STYuE    before sending anything more to it, while the PTY/STY is similarlyl=    waiting for more input from the controlling program beforemF    outputting anything.  (This particular flavor of deadlock is calledE    "starvation".  Another common flavor is "constipation", where eachrD    process is trying to send stuff to the other, but all buffers areF    full because nobody is reading anything.)  See DEADLY EMBRACE, RACE
    CONDITION.s  E DEADLY EMBRACE (ded'lee em-brays') n. Same as DEADLOCK (q.v.), thoughoE    usually used only when exactly two processes are involved.  DEADLYaE    EMBRACE is the more popular term in Europe; DEADLOCK in the Unitedm
    States.  ; DEFENESTRATION (dee-fen-uh-stray'shn) [from the traditionalmD    Czechoslovak method of assassinating prime ministers, via ESR and>    SF fandom] n. Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigibleD    punster. "Oh, ghod, that was *awful*!" "Quick! Defenestrate him!"    See also H INFIX.  ? DEEP SPACE (deep spays) adj. 1. Describes the "location" of anyeF    program which has gone OFF THE TROLLEY. Esp. used of programs whichE    just sit there silently grinding long after either failure or some F    output is expected. 2. Also, the metaphorical "location" of a humanA    so dazed and/or confused or caught up in some esoteric form ofi?    BOGOSITY that he/she no longer responds coherently to normalE#    communication. Compare PAGE OUT.N  ? DEMENTED (dee-men't@d) adj. Yet another term of disgust used toO@    describe a program.  The connotation in this case is that theD    program works as designed, but the design is bad.  For example, aE    program that generates large numbers of meaningless error messagesw4    implying it is on the point of imminent collapse.  B DEMIGOD (de'mi-god) n. Hacker with years of experience, a nationalB    reputation, and a major role in the development of at least one@    design, tool or game used by or known to more than 50% of theE    hacker community. To qualify as a genuine demigod, the person mustaB    recognizably identify with the hacker community and have helpedC    shape it. Major demigods include Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie D    (co-inventors of UNIX and C) and Richard M. Stallman (inventor ofB    EMACS). In their hearts of hearts most hackers dream of somedayA    becoming demigods themselves, and more than one major softwaremE    project has been driven to completion by the author's veiled hopesc0    of apotheosis. See also NET.GOD, TRUE-HACKER.  G DEMON (dee'mun) n. 1. [MIT] A portion of a program which is not invokedgF    explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) toB    occur.  See DAEMON.  The distinction is that demons are usuallyA    processes within a program, while daemons are usually programseE    running on an operating system.  Demons are particularly common inUD    AI programs.  For example, a knowledge manipulation program might@    implement inference rules as demons.  Whenever a new piece ofC    knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which demonsy<    depends on the particular piece of data) and would create>    additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respectiveD    inference rules to the original piece.  These new pieces could inD    turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down throughC    chains of logic.  Meanwhile the main program could continue withy=    whatever its primary task was. 2. [outside MIT] Often usedOE    equivalently to DAEMON, especially under UNIX where the the latterm;    spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic.,  B DEPRECATED (de'pre-kay-t@d) [from UNIX documentation] n. Said of a?    program or feature that is considered obsolescent and in thei?    process of being phased out, usually in favor of a specifiedcE    replacement. Deprecated features can, unfortunately, linger on forh    many years.  D DE-REZZ (dee rez) [from the movie TRON] v. To disappear or dissolve;F    the image that goes with it is of an object breaking up into raster@    lines and static and then dissolving. Occasionally used of a A    person who seems to have suddenly "fuzzed out" mentally rathermD    than physically. Usage: extremely silly, also rare. This verb wasB    actually invented as *fictional* hacker slang, and adopted in a8    spirit of irony by real hackers years after the fact.  C DEVO (dee'vo) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n.  A person in aa/    development group.  See also DOCO and MANGO.u  D DICKLESS WORKSTATION (dik'less werk'sta-shn) n. Extremely pejorativeE    hackerism for "diskless workstation", a class of botches includingaB    the Sun 3/50 and other machines designed exclusively to network?    with an expensive central disk server. These combine all theI>    disadvantages of time-sharing with all the disadvantages of"    distributed personal computers.  D DIDDLE (di'dl) v. To work with in a not particularly serious manner.E    "I diddled with a copy of ADVENT so it didn't double-space all the B    time."  "Let's diddle this piece of code and see if the problem&    goes away."  See TWEAK and TWIDDLE.  F DIKE (diek) [from "diagonal cutters"] v. To remove a module or disable%    it.  "When in doubt, dike it out."b  E DING (ding) n.,v. Synonym for FEEP (q.v.). Usage: rare among hackers,t"    but commoner in THE REAL WORLD.  C DINOSAUR (die'n@-sor) n. Any hardware requiring raised flooring andkC    special power.  Used especially of old minis and mainframes whenlC    contrasted with newer microprocessor-based machines. In a famousMC    quote from the '88 UNIX EXPO, Bill Joy compared the mainframe inoA    the massive IBM display with a grazing dinosaur, "with a truckiE    outside pumping its bodily fluids through it". IBM was not amused.S    Compare BIG IRON.  A DINOSAUR PEN (die'n@-sor pen) n. A traditional mainframe computerw=    room complete with raised flooring, special power, its owntD    ultra-heavy-duty air conditioning, and a side order of Halon fire    extinguishers. See BOA.  A DISCORDIANISM (dis-kor'di-uhn-ism) n. The veneration of ERIS, akasB    Discordia.  Popularized by Robert Anton Wilson's _Illuminatus!_E    trilogy as a sort of self-subverting dada-Zen for Westerners -- it B    should on no account be taken seriously but is far more seriousB    than most jokes. Usually connected with an elaborate conspiracyD    theory/joke involving millenia-long warfare between the partisansE    of Eris and a malevolent secret society called the Illuminati. See %    Appendix C and HA HA ONLY SERIOUS.   C DISPLAY HACK (dis-play' hak) n. A program with the same approximatehE    purpose as a kaleidoscope: to make pretty pictures. Famous displays?    hacks include MUNCHING SQUARES, SMOKING CLOVER, the BSD UNIXsF    rain(6) program, worms(6) on miscellaneous UNIXes, and the X kaleid    program.h  D DOCO (do'ko) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n.  A documentation$    writer.  See also DEVO and MANGO.  F DO PROTOCOL (doo proh'toh-kahl) [from network protocol programming] v.F    To perform an interaction with somebody or something that follows aC    clearly defined procedure.  For example, "Let's do protocol with F    the check" at a restaurant means to ask the waitress for the check,>    calculate the tip and everybody's share, generate change as    necessary, and pay the bill.b  A DOGWASH (dog'wahsh) [From a quip in the "urgency" field of a very B    optional software change request, about 1982.  It was somethingD    like, "Urgency: Wash your dog first."] v.,n. A project of minimalF    priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work.  Also, toF    engage in such a project. Many games and much FREEWARE gets written    this way.  F DON'T DO THAT, THEN (dohnt doo dhat, dhen) interj. Stock response to aE    user complaint.  "When I type control-S, the whole system comes touD    a halt for thirty seconds."  "Don't do that, then." Compare RTFM.  D DONGLE (don-gl) n. 1. A security device for commercial microcomputerC    programs consisting of a serialized EPROM and some drivers in anoD    RS-232 connector shell. Programs that use a dongle query the portF    at startup and programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if itA    does not respond with the dongle's programmed validation code.oD    Thus, users could make as many copies of the program as they wantD    but must pay for each dongle. The idea was clever but a practicalC    failure, as users disliked tyng up a serial port this way. 2. By E    extension, any physical electronic key or transferable ID requirede.    for a program to function. See DONGLE DISK.  C DONGLE-DISK (don'g@l disk) n. See DONGLE; a DONGLE-DISK is a floppyEC    disk with some coding which allows an application to identify itGE    uniquely. It can therefore be used as a DONGLE. Also called a "key 	    disk".n  9 DOORSTOP (dor-stop) n. Used to describe equipment that is.?    non-functional and halfway expected to remain so, especially =    obsolescent equipment kept around for political reasons or E    ostensibly as a backup.  "When we get another Wyse-50 in here thatt8    ADM3 will turn into a doorstop." Compare BOAT ANCHOR.  @ DOT FILE (dot fiel) [UNIX] n. A file that is invisible to normalF    directory-browsing tools (on UNIX, files named beginning with a dot    are invisible).  F DOWN (down) 1. adj. Not working.  "The up escalator is down."  2. TAKED    DOWN, BRING DOWN: v. To deactivate, usually for repair work.  See    UP.  E DOWNLOAD (down'lohd) v. To transfer data or (esp.) code from a largersA    `host' system (esp. a mainframe) over a digital comm link to au?    smaller `client' system, esp. a microcomputer or specializedi$    peripheral device. Oppose UPLOAD.  @ DRAGON (dra'gn) n. [MIT] A program similar to a "daemon" (q.v.),C    except that it is not invoked at all, but is instead used by thetF    system to perform various secondary tasks.  A typical example wouldC    be an accounting program, which keeps track of who is logged in,c>    accumulates load- average statistics, etc.  Under ITS, manyB    terminals displayed a list of people logged in, where they are,E    what they're running, etc. along with some random picture (such as B    a unicorn, Snoopy, or the Enterprise) which is generated by theF    "NAME DRAGON".  See PHANTOM.  Usage: rare outside MIT -- under UNIXB    and most other OSs this would be called a `background DEMON' or    `DAEMON' (q.v).  E DRAGON BOOK, THE (dra'gn buk, dh@) n. Aho, Sethi and Ullman's classicjD    compilers text _Compilers:_Principles,_Techniques,_and_Tools_, soB    called because of the cover design depicting a knight slaying a)    dragon labelled "compiler complexity".(  0 DRAIN (drayn) [IBM] v. Syn. for FLUSH (sense 4).  D DRECNET (drek'net) [fr. Yiddish `dreck'] n. Deliberate distortion ofE    DECNET, a networking protocol used in the VMS community. So-calledo@    because DEC helped write the Ethernet specification, and then>    (either stupidly or as a malignant customer-control tactic)C    violated that spec in the design of DRECNET (among other things,t/    they implemented the wrong HEARTBEAT speed).   B DROOL-PROOF PAPER (drool-proof pay'per) n. Documentation which hasA    been obsessively dumbed down, to the point where only a CRETINl:    could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the;    "drool-proof paper syndrome" or to have been "written ond    drool-proof paper".  = DROP ON THE FLOOR (drop on dh@ flor) vt. To discard silently..>    Example: "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just startedF    dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail.    and netnews relay sites that lose messages.  C DRUGGED (druhgd) adj., also ON DRUGS. Conspicuously stupid, headingpE    towards BRAIN DAMAGE. Often accompanied by a pantomime of toking at	    joint.i  F DRUNK MOUSE SYNDROME (druhnk mows sin'drohm) n.  A malady exhibited by?    the mouse pointing device of some workstations.  The typicaldB    symptom is for the mouse cursor on the screen to move to randomB    directions and not in sync with the moving of the actual mouse.C    Can usually be corrected by unplugging the mouse and plugging itR    back again.  D DUSTY DECKS (duhs'tee deks) [a holdover from card-punch days] n. OldB    software (especially applications) with which one is obliged toD    remain compatible. Used esp. when referring to old scientific andB    number-crunching software, much of which was written in FORTRAND    and very poorly documented but would be too expensive to replace.    See FOSSIL.  B DWIM (dwim) [Do What I Mean] 1. adj. Able to guess, sometimes evenF    correctly, what result was intended when provided with bogus input.F    Often suggested in jest as a desired feature for a complex program.C    A related term, more often seen as a verb, is DTRT (Do The Right D    Thing).  2. n. The INTERLISP function that attempts to accomplishF    this feat by correcting many of the more common errors.  See HAIRY.   			= E =  E EASTER EGGING (ees'tr e'g@ng) [IBM] n. The act of replacing unrelated!C    parts more or less at random in hopes that a malfunction will gokH    away. Hackers consider this the normal operating mode of FIELD CIRCUS%    techs and do not love them for it.p  G EARTHQUAKE (erth'kwayk) [IBM] n. The ultimate REAL WORLD shock test forlD    computer hardware. Hacker sources at IBM deny the rumor that the E    Bay Area quake of 1989 was initiated by the company to test Q&A ati    its California plants.   E EIGHTY-COLUMN MIND (ay'tee kol'@m miend) [IBM] n. The sort said to benD    employed by persons for whom the transition from card to tape wasE    traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is saidrF    that these people will be buried `9-EDGE-FORWARD-FACE-DOWN'. [TheseF    people are thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base,    and its thinking -- ESR].  < ELEGANT (e'l@-gnt) [from mathematical usage] adj. Said of anE    algorithm, program, or system that combines simplicity, power, and-D    a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than `clever',    `winning' or even CUSPY.r  E ELEPHANTINE (el'@-fn-teen) adj. Used of programs or systems which arePE    both conspicuous HOGs (due perhaps to poor design founded on BRUTET@    FORCE AND IGNORANCE) and exceedingly HAIRY in source form. AnE    elephantine program may be functional and even friendly, but (likenB    the old joke about being in bed with an elephant) it's tough toB    have around all the same, esp.  a bitch to maintain. In extremeF    cases, hackers have been known to make trumpeting sounds or performF    expressive zoomorphic mime at the mention of the offending program.B    Usage: semi-humorous. Compare "has the elephant nature" and the?    somewhat more pejorative MONSTROSITY. See also SECOND-SYSTEM     SYNDROME.  D EMACS (ee'maks) [from Editing MACroS] n. The ne plus ultra of hackerC    editors, a program editor with an entire LISP interpreter insideiD    it.  Originally written by Richard Stallman in TECO at the MIT-AIA    lab, but the most widely used versions now run under UNIX.  It C    includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses and send and(@    receive mail; many hackers spend up to 80% of their tube time
    inside it.s  ; EMAIL (ee-mayl) v.,n. Electronic mail. Contrast SNAIL-MAIL.i  ? EMOTICON (ee-moh'ti-cahn) n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate anaE    emotional state in email or news. Hundreds have been proposed, but /    only a few are in common use. These include:e  )    :-)   Smiley face (indicates laughter)h9    :-(   Frowney face (indicates sadness, anger or upset)i;    ;-)   Half-smiley (ha ha only serious), aka winkey face.t    :-/   Wry facea  F    Of these, the first two are by far the most frequently encountered.H    Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie and BIX; see    also BIXIE.  C EMPIRE (em'pier) n. Any of a family of military simulations derived]D    from a game written by Peter Langston many years ago. There are 5C    or 6 multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication, B    and one single-player version implemented for both UNIX and VMSB    which is even available as MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously
    addictive.e  B EOF (ee-oh-ef) [UNIX/C] n. End Of File. 1. Refers esp. to whatever=    pseudo-character value is returned by C's sequential inputa?    functions (and their equivalents in other environments) whend@    the logical end of file has been reached (this was 0 under V6D    UNIX, is -1 under V7 and all subsequent versions and all non-UNIXC    C library implementations). 2. Used by extension in non-computeriC    contexts when a human is doing something that can be modelled assE    a sequential read and can't go further. "Yeah, I looked for a listaA    of 360 mnemonics to post as a joke, but I hit EOF pretty fast,I)    all the library had was a JCL manual.")  0 EPOCH, THE (ee'p@k, dh@) [UNIX] n. Syn. for ERA.  E EPSILON (ep'si-lahn) [from standard mathematical notation for a smallh?    quantity] 1.  n. A small quantity of anything.  "The cost is.B    epsilon."  2. adj.  Very small, negligible; less than marginal.E    "We can get this feature for epsilon cost."  3. WITHIN EPSILON OF:SC    Close enough to be indistinguishable for all practical purposes.r  D ERA, THE (ee'ra, dh@) [from UNIX] n. The time and date correspondingE    to zero in an operating system's clock and timestamp values. Under C    most UNIX versions, midnight of January 1st 1970. System time issC    measured in TICKS past the era. Syn. with EPOCH. See TICKS, WALL     TIME.  E ERIS (e'r@s) pn. The Greco-Roman goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion A    and Things You Know Not Of; aka Discordia. Not a very friendly A    deity in the Classical original, she was re-invented as a morecE    benign personification of creative anarchy starting in 1959 by thet?    adherents of DISCORDIANISM and has since been a semi-serioust?    subject of veneration in several `fringe' cultures includingh;    hackerdom.  See DISCORDIANISM, CHURCH OF THE SUB-GENIUS.a  F ESSENTIALS (e-sen'tiuhls) n. Things necessary to maintain a productiveE    and secure hacking environment. "A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, axD    20-megahertz 80386 box with 8 meg of core and a 300-megabyte diskD    supporting full UNIX with source and X windows and EMACS and UUCP*    to a friendly Internet site, and thou."  A EXCL (eks'kl) n. Abbreviation for "exclamation point".  See BANG,w    SHRIEK, WOW.m  E EXE (ex'ee) An executable binary file. Some operating systems use theaD    extension .EXE to mark such files. This usage is also found among?    UNIX programmers even though UNIX executables don't have anyk    required extension.  F EXEC n. 1. [UNIX] Synonym for CHAIN, derives from the exec(2) call. 2.E    obs. The command interpreter for an OS (see SHELL); term esp. usedpD    on mainframes, and prob. derived from UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and    EXEC 8 operating systems.   			= F =  > FALL OVER (fol o'vr) [IBM] v. Yet another synonym for CRASH or4    LOSE. `Fall over hard' equates to CRASH AND BURN.  ? FANDANGO ON CORE (fan-dang'go on kor) [UNIX/C hackers, from theoA    Mexican dance] n. In C, a wild pointer that runs out of boundssE    causing a CORE DUMP, or corrupts the malloc(3) ARENA in such a way F    as to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to haveE    `done a fandango on core'. On low-end personal machines without anvE    MMU this can corrupt the OS itself, causing massive lossage. OtherlB    third-world dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha or watusi may beF    substituted. See ALIASING SCREW, PRECEDENCE SCREW, SMASH THE STACK,    MEMORY LEAK, OVERRUN SCREW.  E FASCISTIC (fa-shis'tik) adj. Said of a computer system with excessivetF    or annoying security barriers, usage limits or access policies. The@    implication is that said policies are preventing hackers from!    getting interesting work done.   E FAULTY (fawl'tee) adj. Same denotation as "bagbiting", "bletcherous",D6    "losing", q.v., but the connotation is much milder.  F FEAR AND LOATHING (feer @nd loh'thing) [from Hunter Thompson] n. StateF    inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain REAL WORLD systemsB    and standards which are totally BRAIN DAMAGED but ubiquitous --C    Intel 8086s, or COBOL, or any IBM machine except the Rios. "Ack.d?    They want PCs to be able to talk to the AI machine. Fear and      loathing time!" See also IBM.  ; FEATURE (fee'chr) n. 1. A surprising property of a program.eC    Occasionally documented.  To call a property a feature sometimesyB    means the author of the program did not consider the particularC    case, and the program makes an unexpected, although not strictlyy@    speaking an incorrect response.  See BUG.  "That's not a bug,;    that's a feature!"  A bug can be changed to a feature bygE    documenting it.  2. A well-known and beloved property; a facility.'C    Sometimes features are planned, but are called crocks by others.i  B FEATURECTOMY (fee`ch@r-ek'to-mee) n. The act of removing a featureC    from a program.  Featurectomies generally come in two varieties,e@    the RIGHTEOUS and the RELUCTANT. Righteous featurectomies areC    performed because the remover believes the program would be moreDE    elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and E    "better" way to achieve the same end.  (This is not quite the samemA    thing as removing a MISFEATURE.)  Reluctant featurectomies areeE    performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or"    execution speed.l  C FEEP (feep) 1. n. The soft bell of a display terminal (except for avE    VT-52!); a beep.  2. v. To cause the display to make a feep sound. B    TTY's do not have feeps.  Alternate forms: BEEP, BLEEP, or just>    about anything suitably onomatopoeic.  The term BREEDLE was?    sometimes heard at SAIL, where the terminal bleepers are notsF    particularly "soft" (they sound more like the musical equivalent of@    sticking out one's tongue).  The "feeper" on a VT-52 has beenE    compared to the sound of a '52 Chevy stripping its gears. See alsot    DING.  = FEEPING CREATURITIS (fee'ping kree`ch@r-ie'tis) n. Deliberate'A    spoonerization of CREEPING FEATURITIS, meant to imply that thewC    system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of 	    hacks.g  B FENCEPOST ERROR (fens'post eir'@r) n. The discrete equivalent of a@    boundary condition.  Often exhibited in programs by iterativeE    loops.  From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feeto?    long with posts ten feet apart, how many posts do you need?" ;    (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10.)o  F FIELD CIRCUS (feeld ser'k@s) n.  The field service organization of anyA    hardware manufacturer, but especially DEC.  There is an entire 3    genre of jokes about DEC field circus engineers:   A 	Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer with a flatA
 	    tire?1 	A: He's swapping tires to see which one is flat.p  @ 	Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer who is out 	    of gas?1 	A: He's swapping tires to see which one is flat.   C FILK (filk) [from SF fandom, where a typo for "folk" was adopted as C    a new word] n.,v. A "filk" is a popular or folk song with lyricsAF    revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect whenE    read and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions. There is anD    flourishing subgenre of these called "computer filks", written byF    hackers and often containing technical humor of quite sophisticated
    nature.  B FILM AT 11 (film at @-lev'n) [MIT, in imitation of TV network news?    squibs.], interj.  Used in conversation to announce ordinaryi=    events, with a sarcastic implication that these events are >    earth-shattering. This is hard to describe.  Examples: "ITS>    crashes; film at 11." "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11."  C FILTER (fil'tr) [orig. UNIX, now also in MS-DOS] n. A program whichrD    processes an input text stream into an output text stream in someE    well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possiblyd?    on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a     PIPELINE, (q.v.).  C FINE (fien) [WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be CUSPY.  [The C    word FINE is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicito4    comparison to the higher level implied by CUSPY.]  ; FINGER (fing'gr) [BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays al@    particular user or all users logged on the system or a remoteB    system.  Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time,F    terminal line and terminal location. May also display a "plan file"B    left by the user. 2. v. To apply finger to a username. 3. v. ByE    extension, to check a human's current state by any means. "Foodp?"s0    "T!" "OK, finger Lisa and see if she's idle".  B FIREBOTTLE (fier'bo`tl) n. A large, primitive, power-hungry activeA    electrical device, similar to an FET constructed out of glass,nC    metal, and vacuum.  Characterized by high cost, low density, lowm:    reliability, high-temperature operation, and high powerF    dissipation.  Sometimes mistakenly called a "tube" in the U.S. or a    "valve" in England.  D FIREWALL MACHINE (fier'wal m:-sheen') n. A dedicated gateway machineC    with special security precautions on it, used to service outsiderF    network/mail/news connections and/or accept remote logins for (readB    only) shared-file-system access via FTP. The idea is to protectC    cluster of more loosely administered machines `hidden' behind iti<    from crackers. The typically `firewall' is an inexpensiveD    micro-based UNIX box kept clean of critical data, with a bunch of?    modems and public network ports on it but just one carefullyIB    watched connection back to the rest of the cluster. The specialB    precautions may include threat monitoring, callback, and even aC    complete IRON BOX keyable to particular incoming IDs or activityu)    patterns. Syn. FLYTRAP, VENUS FLYTRAP.o  F FIRMWARE (ferm'weir) n. Software installed into a computer-based pieceD    of equipment on ROM. So-called because it's harder to change than%    software but easier than hardware.a  E FLAG DAY (flag day) [from a bit of Multics history involving a changeeE    in the ASCII character set originally scheduled for June 14, 1966]l=    n. A software change which is neither forward nor backwardrF    compatible, and which is costly to make and costly to revert.  "Can=    we install that without causing a flag day for all users?"c  B FLAKEY (flay'kee) adj. Subject to frequent lossages.  See LOSSAGE.  B FLAMAGE (flaym'@j) n. High-noise, low-signal postings to USENET orB    other electronic fora. Often in the phrase "the usual flamage".  < FLAME (flaym) v. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on someA    relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculousmC    attitude.  FLAME ON: v. To continue to flame.  See RAVE, BURBLE.t  = FLAME WAR (flaym wor) n. Acrimonious dispute, especially when"9    conducted on a public electronic forum such as USENET.L  = FLAMER (flay'mr) v. One who habitually flames others. Said ofi"    obnoxious USENET personalities.  D FLAP (flap) v. To unload a DECtape (so it goes flap, flap, flap...).E    Old hackers at MIT tell of the days when the disk was device 0 and A    microtapes were 1, 2,... and attempting to flap device 0 wouldn@    instead start a motor banging inside a cabinet near the disk!  B FLAVOR (flay'vr) n. 1. Variety, type, kind.  "DDT commands come in=    two flavors."  2. The attribute of causing something to betD    FLAVORFUL.  "This convention yields additional flavor by allowing    one to..."  See VANILLA.r  C FLAVORFUL (flay'vr-fl) adj. Aesthetically pleasing.  See RANDOM andpE    LOSING for antonyms.  See also the entries for TASTE and ELEGANCE..  F FLIPPY (flip'ee) n. A single-side floppy disk altered for double-sidedE    use by addition of a second write-notch, so called because it mustnB    be flipped over for the second side to be accessible. No longer
    common.  D FLUSH (fluhsh) v. 1. To delete something, usually superfluous.  "AllA    that nonsense has been flushed."  Standard ITS terminology for(C    aborting an output operation.  2. To leave at the end of a day'snF    work (as opposed to leaving for a meal).  "I'm going to flush now."?    "Time to flush."  3. To exclude someone from an activity. 4.nE    [UNIX/C] To force buffered I/O to disk, as with an fflush(3) call. <    UNIX hackers find the ITS usage confusing and vice versa.  $ FLYTRAP (flie'trap) n. See FIREWALL.  E FOO (foo) 1. [from Yiddish "feh" or the Anglo-Saxon "fooey!"] interj.i9    Term of disgust.  2. [from FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond Allr?    Recognition), from WWII, often seen as FOOBAR] Name used forh?    temporary programs, or samples of three-letter names.  OtheruF    similar words are BAR, BAZ (Stanford corruption of BAR), and rarelyF    RAG.  These have been used in Pogo as well.  3. Used very generallyE    as a sample name for absolutely anything.  The old `Smokey Stover'iE    comic strips often included the word FOO, in particular on licensemB    plates of cars.  4. First on the standard list of metasyntacticD    variables used in syntax examples. See also: BAR, BAZ, QUX, QUUX,F    QUUUX, CORGE, GRAULT, GARPLY, WALDO, FRED, PLUGH, XYZZY.  MOBY FOO:?    See MOBY.  [It is possible that hacker usage of FOO actually!D    springs from the title "FOO, Lampoons and Parody" of a comic bookD    first issued in September 1958; the byline read "C. Crumb" but myE    source believes this was a sort-of pseudonym for noted weird-comix D    artist Robert Crumb.  The title FOO was featured in large letters    on the front cover -- ESR]e  F FOOL (fool) n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who>    habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrectF    premises and cannot be persuaded to do otherwise by evidence; it isD    not generally used in its other senses, i.e. to describe a personE    with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown.  Indeed,pD    in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all tooA    effectively in executing their errors. See also CRETIN, LOSER.t  F FOOTPRINT (fut'print) n. 1. The floor or desk area taken up by a pieceC    of hardware. 2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashedw+    program (often in plural, `footprints').i  A FOREGROUND (for'grownd) [UNIX] adj.v. On a time-sharing system, aPE    task executing in foreground is one running at normal priority andbB    able to accept input from and return output to the user; opposeD    BACKGROUND. There may be only one forground task per terminal (orE    terminal window). By extension, "to foreground" a task is to bringtD    it to the top of one's PDL or STACK for immediate processing, and=    in this sense hackers often use it for non-computer tasks.   A FORTUNE COOKIE (for'chn ku'kee) [UNIX] n. A random quote, item of C    trivia, joke or maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or.A    (more rarely) at logout time. Items from this jargon file havee&    often been used as fortune cookies.  = FOSSIL (fohs'sl) n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes C    understandable only in historical context, as a remnant of times ?    past retained so as not to break compatibility. Example: theyF    retention of octal as default base for string escapes in C in spite@    of the better match of hexadecimal to modern byte-addressibleC    architectures. See DUSTY DECKS. 2. More restrictively, a featurem@    with past but no present utility. Example: the force-all-capsC    (IUCLC/OLCUC) bits in the UNIX tty driver, designed for use withC    monocase terminals.  : FRED (fred) n. The personal name most frequently used as aF    metasyntactic variable (see FOO). The reasons for this are obscure.  C FREEWARE (free'weir) n. Free software, often written by enthusiasts E    and usually distributed by electronic mail, local bulletin boards,-4    USENET, or other electronic media. See SHAREWARE.  E FRIED (fried) adj. 1. Non-working due to hardware failure; burnt out. D    2. Of people, exhausted.  Said particularly of those who continueD    to work in such a state.  Often used as an explanation or excuse.D    "Yeah, I know that fix destroyed the file system, but I was fried    when I put it in."T  = FROB (frob) 1. n. [MIT] The official Tech Model Railroad Clubo<    definition is "FROB = protruding arm or trunnion", and byD    metaphoric extension any somewhat small thing.  See FROBNITZ.  2.%    v. Abbreviated form of FROBNICATE.O  ? FROBNICATE (frob'ni-kayt) v. To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. D    Derived from FROBNITZ (q.v.).  Usually abbreviated to FROB.  Thus?    one has the saying "to frob a frob".  See TWEAK and TWIDDLE.lC    Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a C    continuum.  FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotesyB    gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting;B    TWEAK connotes fine-tuning.  If someone is turning a knob on anC    oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it he is probably E    tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen heeF    is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning#    a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.[  C FROBNITZ (frob'nits), pl. FROBNITZEM (frob'nitsm) n. An unspecified E    physical object, a widget.  Also refers to electronic black boxes. F    This rare form is usually abbreviated to FROTZ, or more commonly toB    FROB.  Also used are FROBNULE and FROBULE.  Starting perhaps inF    1979, FROBOZZ (fruh-bahz') has also become very popular.  These canC    also be applied to nonphysical objects, such as data structures.s  D FROG alt. PHROG (frog) 1. interj. Term of disgust (we seem to have aF    lot of them).  2. Used as a name for just about anything.  See FOO.E    3. n. Of things, a crock.  Of people, somewhere inbetween a turkeye@    and a toad.  4. FROGGY: adj. Similar to BAGBITING (q.v.), but;    milder.  "This froggy program is taking forever to run!"y  C FROTZ (frotz) 1. n. See FROBNITZ.  2. MUMBLE FROTZ: An interjectione    of very mild disgust.  F FRY (frie) v. 1. To fail.  Said especially of smoke-producing hardwareE    failures.  2. More generally, to become non-working.  Usage: nevercC    said of software, only of hardware and humans.  See FRIED, MAGICU	    SMOKE.   C FTP (ef-tee-pee, NOT "fittip") 1. n. The File Transfer Protocol fore@    transmitting files between systems on the ARPAnet.  2.  v. ToD    transfer a file using the File Transfer Program.  "Lemme get this/    copy of Wuthering Heights FTP'd from uunet."   E FUD WARS (fud worz) n. [from `Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt'] Political C    posturing engaged in by hardware and software vendors ostensibly D    committed to standardization but actually willing to fragment theD    market to protect their own share. The OSF vs. UNIX International    conflict, for example.   = FUDGE (fuhj) 1. v. To perform in an incomplete but marginallyi@    acceptable way, particularly with respect to the writing of a<    program.  "I didn't feel like going through that pain and9    suffering, so I fudged it."  2. n. The resulting code.b  F FUDGE FACTOR (fuhj faktr) n. A value or parameter that is varied in anC    ad hoc way to produce the desired result.  The terms "tolerance"RF    and "slop" are also used, though these usually indicate a one-sided?    leeway, such as a buffer which is made larger than necessarycE    because one isn't sure exactly how large it needs to be, and it isaA    better to waste a little space than to lose completely for notoB    having enough.  A fudge factor, on the other hand, can often be?    tweaked in more than one direction.  An example might be thevD    coefficients of an equation, where the coefficients are varied in8    an attempt to make the equation fit certain criteria.  E FUEL UP (fyool uhp) v. To eat or drink hurriedly in order to get back <    to hacking.  "Food-p?" "Yeah, let's fuel up." "Time for a(    GREAT-WALL!". See also ORIENTAL FOOD.  F FUGGLY (fuhg'lee) adj. Emphatic form of FUNKY; funky + ugly. UnusuallyE    for hacker slang, this may actually derive from black street-jive. B    To say it properly, the first syllable should be growled ratherB    than spoken. Usage: humorous. "Man, the ASCII-to-EBCDIC code in4    that printer driver is *fuggly*." See also WONKY.  A FUNKY (fuhn'kee) adj. Said of something which functions, but in ay>    slightly strange, klugey way.  It does the job and would beD    difficult to change, so its obvious non-optimality is left alone.F    Often used to describe interfaces. The more bugs something has thatA    nobody has bothered to fix because workarounds are easier, the =    funkier it is.  TECO and UUCP are funky.  The Intel i860'so?    exception handling is extraordinarily funky.  Most standardseD    acquire funkiness as they age.  "The new mailer is installed, butF    is still somewhat funky; if it bounces your mail for no reason, tryE    resubmitting it." "This UART is pretty funky.  The data ready lineaE    is active-high in interrupt mode, and active-low in DMA mode." Seee
    FUGGLY.  C FUZZ (fuhz) n. In floating-point arithmetic, the maximum differencemF    allowed between two quantities for them to compare equal. Has to be7    set properly relative to the FPU's precision limits.u  ? FUZZBALL (fuhz'bawl) [TCP/IP hackers] n. A DEC LSI-11 running aiE    particular suite of homebrewed software by Dave Mills and assorted @    co-conspirators, used in the early 80's for Internet protocolF    testbedding and experimentation. These were used as NSFnet backboneE    sites in its early 56KB-line days; a few of these are still activemC    on the Internet as of early 1990, doing odd jobs such as networke    time service.   			= G =  D GABRIEL (gay'bree-@l) [for Dick Gabriel, SAIL volleyball fanatic] n.C    An unnecessary (in the opinion of the opponent) stalling tactic,VC    e.g., tying one's shoelaces or hair repeatedly, asking the time, F    etc.  Also used to refer to the perpetrator of such tactics.  Also,'    "pulling a Gabriel", "Gabriel mode".e  C GAG (gag) vi. Equivalent to CHOKE, but connotes more disgust. "Hey, D    this is Fortran code.  No wonder the C compiler gagged." See also    BARF.  D GARBAGE COLLECT (gar'b@j k@-lekt') v., GARBAGE COLLECTION n. See GC.  D GARPLY (gar'plee) n. [Stanford] Another meta-word popular among SAIL    hackers.N  @ GAS (gas) [as in "gas chamber"] interj. 1. A term of disgust and<    hatred, implying that gas should be dispensed in generousE    quantities, thereby exterminating the source of irritation.  "SomecB    loser just reloaded the system for no reason!  Gas!"  2. A termB    suggesting that someone or something ought to be flushed out ofA    mercy.  "The system's wedging every few minutes.  Gas!"  3. v.1@    FLUSH (q.v.).  "You should gas that old crufty software."  4.E    GASEOUS adj.  Deserving of being gassed.  Usage: primarily used by F    Geoff Goodfellow at SRI, but spreading; became particularly popular?    after the Moscone/Milk murders in San Francisco, when it wasrE    learned that Dan White (who supported Proposition 7) would get the $    gas chamber under 7 if convicted.  > GATEWAY (gayt'way) n. 1. A computer or item of special-purposeF    hardware that links two or more normally incompatible data networksB    and does protocol translation between them. 2. On compatible or?    common-carrier networks, a piece of software that translatesw<    between normally incompatible data formats and addressing    conventions.r  E GC (jee-see) [from LISP terminology] 1. v. To clean up and throw awayhF    useless things.  "I think I'll GC the top of my desk today."  2. v.F    To recycle, reclaim, or put to another use.  3. n. An instantiation    of the GC process.c  D GEDANKEN (g@-dahn'kn) [from Einstein's term "gedanken-experimenten",F    such as the standard proof that E=mc^2] adj. An AI project which isC    written up in grand detail without ever being implemented to any D    great extent.  Usually perpetrated by people who aren't very goodE    hackers or find programming distasteful or are just in a hurry.  A D    gedanken thesis is usually marked by an obvious lack of intuitionE    about what is programmable and what is not and about what does andnA    does not constitute a clear specification of a program-relatedI     concept such as an algorithm.  = GENDER MENDER (jen'dr-men'dr) n. (also GENDER BENDER) A cable C    connector shell with either two male or two female connectors on E    it, used for mating like-sexed cables. Used esp. for RS-232C partsb@    in either the original D-25 or the IBM PC's bogus D-9 format.  = GENERATE (gen'@-rayt) v. To produce something according to andF    algorithm or program or set of rules, or as a (possibly unintended)?    side effect of the execution of an algorithm or program. TheeD    opposite of PARSE. This term retains its mechanistic connotations9    (though often humorously) when used of human behavior.s  B GET A REAL COMPUTER (get uh reel kuhm'pyoo-tr) imp. Typical hackerE    response to news that somebody is having trouble getting work done F    on a system that is a) single- tasking, b) has no Winchester, or c)F    has less than a megabyte of DRAM. This is as of 1990; note that theD    threshold for `real computer' rises with time, and it may well beC    (for example) that machines with character-only displays will beS<    considered `unreal' in five years. See BITTY BOX and TOY.  B GIGO (gie'goh) [acronym] garbage in, garbage out.  Usually said inA    response to lusers who complain that a program didn't complaintF    about faulty data. Also commonly used to describe failures in human?    decision making due to faulty, incomplete or imprecise data.h  D GLARK (glark) v. To figure something out from context, taken from anA    old Scientific American "Mathematical Games" column, where thenF    phrase "glark the meaning from context" was used as an example...ofF    glarking something from context. "The System III manuals are pretty?    poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context".s  * GLASS (glas) [IBM] n. Synonym for SILICON.  C GLASS TTY (glas tee-tee-wie, glas ti-tee) n. A terminal which has ar<    display screen but which, because of hardware or softwareC    limitations, behaves like a teletype or other printing terminal.rA    An example is the ADM-3 (without cursor control).  A glass tty E    can't do neat DISPLAY HACKs, and you can't save the output either.g    See TUBE, TTY.f  E GLITCH (glich) [from the Yiddish "glitshen", to slide] 1. n. A suddennA    interruption in electric service, sanity, or program function.sE    Sometimes recoverable.  2. v. To commit a glitch.  See GRITCH.  3.aD    v. [Stanford] To scroll a display screen. 4. (obs.) Same as MAGIC    COOKIE, sense #2.  C GLORK (glork) 1. interj. Term of mild surprise, usually tinged with.D    outrage, as when one attempts to save the results of two hours ofD    editing and finds that the system has just crashed.  2. Used as aC    name for just about anything.  See FOO.  3. v. Similar to GLITCHlB    (q.v.), but usually used reflexively.  "My program just glorked    itself."   E GNARLY (nar'lee) adj. Both OBSCURE and HAIRY in the sense of complex. C    "Yeech -- the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is reallyeD    gnarly!"  From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang.  : GNU (gnoo, NOT "noo") 1. [acronym for "GNU's Not UNIX!"] AD    UNIX-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation@    headed by Richard Stallman (aka RMS). GNU EMACS and the GNU CB    compiler, two tools designed for this project, have become veryD    popular in hackerdom.  See EMACS, COPYLEFT.  2. Noted UNIX hacker?    John Gilmore (gnu@hoptoad.com), ironically enough one of thesA    best-known and most vocal opponents of the "information shouldo3    not be property" philosophy behind GNU. See RMS.a  C GO FLATLINE (flat'lien) [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening ofrD    EEG traces upon brain-death] v., also adjectival FLATLINED. 1. ToF    die, terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly. In hacker parlance thisF    is used of machines only, human death being considered somewhat tooE    serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes about. 2. To go completelyvC    quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled shutdown. "YouSD    can suffer file damage if you shut down UNIX but power off beforeA    the system has gone flatline." 3. A particular failure mode ofaC    video tubes in which vertical scan is lost, so all one sees is aw/    bright horizontal line bisecting the screen.n  D GOBBLE (go'bl) v. To consume or to obtain.  GOBBLE UP tends to implyE    "consume", while GOBBLE DOWN tends to imply "obtain".  "The outputhE    spy gobbles characters out of a TTY output buffer."  "I guess I'll.A    gobble down a copy of the documentation tomorrow."  See SNARF.i  E GONK (gonk) v.,n. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth beyond anyf?    reasonable recognitions.  In German the term is "GONKEN", ineE    spanish the verb becomes "GONKAR."  "You're gonking me. That storytD    you just told me is a bunch of gonk". In German, "Du Gonkst mir"./    (You're pulling my leg) See also GONKULATOR.   @ GONZO (gon'zo) [from Hunter S. Thompson] adj. Overwhelming; veryC    large, esp.  used of collections of source code, source files orpB    individual functions.  Has some of the connotations of MOBY and    HAIRY, q.v.  > GONKULATOR (gon'kyoo-lay-tr) [from the old "Hogan's Heroes" TVF    series] n. A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves noA    useful purpose.  Usually used to describe one's least favoritep(    piece of computer hardware. See GONK.  A GOOD THING (gud thing) adj. Always capitalized. 1. Self-evidentlykB    wonderful to anyone in a position to notice: "The Trailblazer'sF    19.2Kbaud PEP mode with on-the-fly Lempel-Ziv compression is a Good>    Thing for sites relaying netnews." 2. Something which can'tE    possibly have any ill side effects and may save considerable griefaD    later: "Removing the self-modifying code from that shared library<    would be a Good Thing." 3. When said of software tools orF    libraries, as in "YACC is a Good Thing", specifically connotes thatE    the thing has drastically reduced a programmer's work load. Opposet
    BAD THING.r  > GORP (gorp) [CMU, perhaps from a brand of dried hiker's food?]4    Another metasyntactic variable, like FOO and BAR.  = GORILLA ARM (gor-il'uh arm) n. The side-effect that destroyedpE    touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising C    start in the early eighties. It seems the designers of all thosee@    SPIFFY touch-menu systems failed to notice that humans aren'tC    designed to hold their arms in front of their faces making smalloE    motions. After more than a very few selects the arm begins to feeltA    sore, cramped, and oversized, hence "gorilla arm". This is nowe?    considered a classic Horrible Example and cautionary tale tooC    human-factors designers; "remember the gorilla arm" is shorthand ,    for "how's this gonna fly in *real* use?"  C GREAT RENAMING (grayt ree-naym'ing) n. The FLAG DAY on which all ofKB    the groups on the USENET had their names changed from the net.*.    format to the current 7 hierarchies scheme.  F GREAT-WALL (grayt-wahl) [from SF fandom] v.,n. a mass expedition to anC    oriental restaurant. See ORIENTAL FOOD, CHINESE RAVS, STIR-FRIEDI
    RANDOM.  E GREEN LIGHTNING (green liet'ning) [IBM] n. Apparently random flashing F    streaks on the face of 3278-9 terminals while a programmable symbol?    set is being loaded. This hardware bug was left deliberatelygB    unfixed, as some bright spark suggested that this would let theA    user know that `something is happening'. It certainly does. 2.sC    [generalization of #1 proposed by ESR] Any bug perverted into an ?    alleged feature by adroit rationalization or marketing. E.g. :    "Motorola calls the CISC cruft in the 8800 architecture9    `compatibility logic', but I call it green lightning".n  C GRAULT (grawlt) n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented byEA    Mike Galleher and propagated by the Gosmacs documentation. Seed	    CORGE.s  D GRAY GOO (gray goo) n. A hypothetical substance composed of billionsE    of sub-micron-sized Von Neumann machines (self-replicating robots) =    programmed to make copies of themselves out of whatever isdD    available. The image that goes with the term is one of the entireF    biosphere of Earth being eventually converted to robot goo. This isB    most naive and easiest to demolish of the NANOTECHNOLOGY (q.v.)    disaster scenarios.  B GREP (grep) [from the UNIX grep tool] v. To rapidly scan a file orE    file set looking for a particular string or pattern. By extension,aE    to look for something by pattern. "Grep the bulletin board for the &    system backup schedule, would you?"  B GRIND (griend) v. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To format code, especiallyA    LISP code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty.  Hence,SD    PRETTY PRINT, the generic term for such operations.  2. [UNIX] ToF    generate the formatted version of a document from the nroff, troff,E    TEX or Scribe source. 3. To run seemingly interminably, performinga?    some tedious and inherently useless task. Similar to CRUNCH,u
    GROVEL.  D GRIND CRANK (griend crank) n. A mythical accessory to a terminal.  AF    crank on the side of a monitor, which when operated makes a zizzingE    noise and causes the computer to run faster.  Usually one does notrD    refer to a grind crank out loud, but merely makes the appropriateF    gesture and noise. See GRIND, CHUNGA CHUNGA CHUNGA and WUGGA WUGGA.  C GRITCH (grich) 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a GLITCH (q.v.)).l?    2. v. To complain.  Often verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch".  3. 
    Glitch.  C GROK (grok) [from the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by RobertlD    Heinlein, where it is a Martian verb meaning literally "to drink"F    and metaphorically "to be one with"] v. To understand, usually in a<    global sense. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge.  @ GRONK (gronk) [popularized by the cartoon strip "B.C." by JohnnyB    Hart, but the word apparently predates that] v. 1. To clear theA    state of a wedged device and restart it.  More severe than "torE    frob" (q.v.).  2. To break.  "The teletype scanner was gronked, soB=    we took the system down."  3. GRONKED: adj. Of people, thesF    condition of feeling very tired or sick.  4. GRONK OUT: v. To ceaseF    functioning.  Of people, to go home and go to sleep.  "I guess I'll(    gronk out now; see you all tomorrow."  = GROVEL (gruh'vl) v. To work interminably and without apparentNF    progress.  Often used with "over".  "The compiler grovelled over myF    code."  Compare GRIND and CRUNCH.  Emphatic form: GROVEL OBSCENELY.  C GRUNGY (gruhn'jee) adj. Incredibly dirty or grubby.  Anything whichsC    has been washed within the last year is not really grungy.  AlsotF    used metaphorically; hence some programs (especially crocks) can beC    described as grungy. Now (1990) also common in mainstream slang.w  A GUBBISH (guh'bish) [a portmanteau of "garbage" and "rubbish"?] n. 8    Garbage; crap; nonsense.  "What is all this gubbish?"  F GUILTWARE (gilt'weir) n. FREEWARE decorated with a message telling oneE    how long and hard the author worked on this program and intimatingnB    that one is a no-good shit if one does not immediately send the'    poor suffering martyr gobs of money.   C GUMBY (guhm'bee) [from the claymation character] n. An act of minor F    but conspicuous stupidity, often in GUMBY MANEUVER or PULL A GUMBY.  C GUN (guhn) [from the GUN command on ITS] v. To forcibly terminate aa=    program or job (computer, not career).  "Some idiot left acE    background process running soaking up half the cycles, so I gunnedt    it." Compare CAN.  D GURFLE (ger'fl) interj. An expression of shocked disbelief. "He saidA    we have to recode this thing in FORTRAN by next week. Gurfle!"e  C GURU (gur'oo) n. A UNIX expert. Implies not only WIZARD skill but a E    history of being a knowledge resource for others. Less often, usedcD    (with a qualifier) for other experts on other systems, as in "VMS	    guru".g     			= H =  C H INFIX (aych in-fix) [from SF fandom] A method of "marking" common!D    words in the linguist's sense, i.e. calling attention to the factE    that they are being used in a nonstandard, ironic or humorous way.dE    Orig. in the fannish catchphrase "Bheer is the One True Ghod" fromlF    decades ago.  H-infix marking of "Ghod" and other words spread intoC    the Sixties counterculture via underground comix, and into early C    hackerdom either from the counterculture or SF fandom (all threetB    overlapped heavily at the time). More recently, the h infix has@    become an expected feature of benchark names, i.e. Whetstone,>    Dhrystone, Rhealstone, etc; this is prob. patterning on the0    original Whetstone name but influenced by the"    fannish/counterculture H infix.  @ HA HA ONLY SERIOUS (ha ha ohn'lee see'ree-us) [from SF fandom] AA    phrase that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discoursei>    (sometimes seen abbreviated as HHOS). Applied especially toD    parodies, absurdities and ironic jokes that are both intended andB    perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, orF    truths which are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. The jargonE    file contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both form andmE    content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often perceivedqE    as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either toouC    lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider or one in C    LARVAL STAGE. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult *    any Zen master. See also HUMOR, HACKER.  F HACK (hack) n. 1. Originally a quick job that produces what is needed,D    but not well.  2. The result of that job.  3. NEAT HACK: A cleverB    technique.  Also, a brilliant practical joke, where neatness is@    correlated with cleverness, harmlessness, and surprise value.E    Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl card display switch circa 1961.  4.e>    REAL HACK: A crock (occasionally affectionate).  v. 5. WithB    "together", to throw something together so it will work.  6. ToD    bear emotionally or physically.  "I can't hack this heat!" 7.  ToE    work on something (typically a program).  In specific sense: "What C    are you doing?"  "I'm hacking TECO."  In general sense: "What doo7    you do around here?"  "I hack TECO."  (The former isBF    time-immediate, the latter time-extended.)  More generally, "I hackB    x" is roughly equivalent to "x is my bag".  "I hack solid-stateF    physics."  8. To pull a prank on.  See definition 3 and HACKER (defE    #6).  9. v.i. To waste time (as opposed to TOOL).  "Watcha up to?" @    "Oh, just hacking."  10. HACK UP (ON): To hack, but generallyF    implies that the result is meanings 1-2.  11. HACK VALUE: Term usedF    as the reason or motivation for expending effort toward a seeminglyF    useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack.C    For example, MacLISP has features for reading and printing romanaD    numerals, which was installed purely for hack value. 12. [UNIX] A;    dungeon game similar to ROGUE (q.v.) but more elaborate, E    distributed in C source over USENET and very popular at UNIX sitesaB    and on PC-class machines. Recent versions are called `nethack'.B    HAPPY HACKING: A farewell.  HOW'S HACKING?: A friendly greeting?    among hackers.  HACK HACK: A somewhat pointless but friendlyo/    comment, often used as a temporary farewell.e  D HACKER (hak'r) [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]@    n. 1. A person who enjoys learning the details of programmingD    systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to mostD    users who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.  2. One whoC    programs enthusiastically, or who enjoys programming rather than.=    just theorizing about programming.  3. A person capable ofa>    appreciating HACK VALUE (q.v.).  4. A person who is good atD    programming quickly.  Not everything a hacker produces is a hack.C    5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently doestD    work using it or on it; example: "A UNIX hacker".  (Definitions 1@    to 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)  6.?    (deprecated) A malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries tosC    discover information by poking around.  Hence "password hacker",s!    "network hacker". See CRACKER.b  E HACK MODE (hak mohd) n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course. 2.gD    More specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The ProblemC    which may be achieved when one is hacking. Ability to enter suchiE    concentration at will correlates strongly with wizardliness; it is-@    one of the most important skills learned during LARVAL STAGE.B    Sometimes amplified as DEEP HACK MODE. Being yanked out of hack@    mode (see PRIORITY INTERRUPT) may be experienced as an almostB    physical shock, and the sensation of being in it is more than aF    little habituating. The intensity of this experience is probably byB    itself sufficient explanation for the existence of hackers, andF    explains why many resist being promoted out of positions where they    can do code.   F HACKING RUN (hak'ing ruhn) [analogy with `bombing run' or `speed run']B    n. A hack session extended long outside `normal' working times,E    especially one longer than 12 hours. May cause you to CHANGE PHASE9    THE HARD WAY (see PHASE).  D HACKISH (hak'ish) adj. (also HACKISHNESS n.) 1. Being or involving aA    hack. 2. Of or pertaining to hackers or the hacker subculture.e    See also TRUE-HACKER.  < HAIR (heir) n. The complications which make something hairy.E    "Decoding TECO commands requires a certain amount of hair."  Often ;    seen in the phrase INFINITE HAIR, which connotes extreme D    complexity. Also in HAIRIFEROUS (tending to promote hair growth):@    "GNU elisp encourages lusers to write complex editing modes."-    "Yeah, it's pretty hairiferous all right."i  @ HAIRY (heir'ee) adj. 1. Overly complicated.  "DWIM is incrediblyF    hairy."  2.  Incomprehensible.  "DWIM is incredibly hairy."  3.  Of<    people, high-powered, authoritative, rare, expert, and/orB    incomprehensible.  Hard to explain except in context: "He knows>    this hairy lawyer who says there's nothing to worry about."  A HAKMEM (hak'mem) n. MIT AI Memo 239 (February 1972).  A legendary D    collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks contributed'    by many people at MIT and elsewhere.r  D HAND-HACKING (hand hak'ing) n. The practice of translating HOT SPOTSB    from an HLL into custom hand-optimized assembler, as opposed toF    trying to coerce the compiler into generating better code. Both the>    term and the practice are becoming uncommon. See TUNE, BUM.  E HANDWAVE (hand'wayv) 1. v. To gloss over a complex point; to distractg@    a listener; to support a (possibly actually valid) point withF    blatantly faulty logic.  2. n. The act of handwaving.  "Boy, what aE    handwave!"  The use of this word is often accompanied by gestures: A    both hands up, palms forward, swinging the hands in a verticalnB    plane pivoting at the elbows and/or shoulders (depending on theB    magnitude of the handwave); alternatively, holding the forearmsD    still while rotating the hands at the wrist to make them flutter.:    In context, the gestures alone can suffice as a remark.  D HANLON'S RAZOR (han'lnz ray'zr) n. A "murphyism" parallel to Occam's@    Razor that reads "Never attribute to malice that which can beF    adequately explained by stupidity". Quoted here because it seems toC    be a particular favorite of hackers, often showing up in FORTUNEiC    COOKIE files and the login banners of BBS systems and commercial E    networks.  This probably reflects the hacker's daily experience ofpA    environments created by the well-intentioned but shortsighted.   B HARDWARILY (hard-weir'i-lee) adv. In a way pertaining to hardware.F    "The system is hardwarily unreliable."  The adjective "hardwary" is    NOT used.  See SOFTWARILY..  B HAS THE X NATURE (has dh@ eks nay'tyoor) [seems to derive from ZenB    Buddhist koans of the form "Does an X have the Buddha-nature?"]C    adj. Common hacker construction for `is an X', used for humorouskD    emphasis. Ex: "Anyone who can't even use a program with on-screen3    help embedded in it truly has the LOSER nature!"g  B HASH COLLISION (hash k@-li'zhn) [from the technical usage] n. WhenA    used of people, signifies a confusion in associative memory oryE    imagination, especially a persistent one (see THINKO). True story:.D    one of us (ESR) was once on the phone with a friend about to moveD    out to Berkeley. When asked what he expected Berkeley to be like,F    the friend replied "Well, I have this mental picture of naked womenE    throwing Molotov cocktails, but I think that's just a collision in.    my hash tables."y  @ HCF (aych-see-eff) n. Mnemonic for "Halt and Catch Fire", any of;    several undocumented and semi-mythical instructions withFE    destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on E    several well-known architectures going as far back as the IBM 360. D    The MC68000 microprocessor was the first for which the HCF opcodeF    became widely known. The 68000 HCF causes the processor to toggle a8    subset of the bus lines as rapidly as it can; in some;    configurations this can actually cause lines to burn up.   E HEARTBEAT (hart'beet) n. 1. The master clock signal propagated acrossdF    an Ethernet; by extension, the time-baseline synchronization signalE    at the physical level of any network. 2. The `natural' oscillation E    frequency of a computer's clock crystal, before frequency division $    down to the machine's CLOCK RATE.  > HEISENBUG (hie'sen-buhg) [from quantum physics] n. A bug whichB    disappears or alters its behavior when one attempts to probe or<    isolate it. Antonym of BOHR BUG (q.v.). In C, 9 out of 10A    heisenbugs result from either FANDANGO ON CORE phenomena (esp.rE    lossage related to corruption of the malloc ARENA) or errors whichi    SMASH THE STACK.   D HELLO SAILOR! (he'lo say'lr) interj. Occsional West Coast equivalent'    of `Hello, world!'. See HELLO WORLD.   " HELLO WALL  (he'lo wahl) See WALL.  @ HELLO WORLD! (he'lo werld) interj. 1. The canonical minimal testE    message in the C/UNIX universe. In folklore, the first program a CyC    coder is supposed to write in a new environment is one that justoC    prints "Hello, world!" to his standard output. Environments thattE    generate an unreasonably large executable for this trivial test or.F    which require a HAIRY compiler-linker invocation to generate it are@    considered to LOSE. 2. Greeting uttered by a hacker making anB    entrance or requesting information from anyone present. "Hello,"    world! Is the VAX back up yet?"  " HIGH BIT (hie bit) n. See META BIT  E HIRSUTE (heer's[y]oot) adj. Occasionally used humorously as a synonyml
    for HAIRY.g  C HLL (aych-el-el) n. [High-Level Language (as opposed to assembler)]sD    Found primarily in email and news rather than speech. Rarely, the?    variants `VHLL' and `MLL' are found. VHLL = `Very-High-Levelh=    Language' and is used to describe a BONDAGE-AND-DISCIPLINE D    LANGUAGE that the speaker happens to like; Prolog and Backus's FPA    are often called VHLLs. `MLL' = `Medium-Level Language' and isr>    sometimes used half-jokingly to describe C, alluding to its>    `structured-assembler' image. See also LANGUAGES OF CHOICE.  D HOG (hawg) n.,v. Favored term to describe programs which seem to eatF    far more than their share of a system's resources, esp. those whichA    noticeably degrade general timesharing response. *Not* used ofbD    programs which are simply extremely large or complex or which areE    merely painfully slow themselves (see PIG, RUN LIKE A). More oftenuE    than not encountered in qualified forms, e.g MEMORY HOG, CORE HOG,e#    HOG THE PROCESSOR, HOG THE DISK.   E HOOK (huk) n. An extraneous piece of software or hardware included inaE    order to simplify later additions or debug options.  For instance,uE    a program might execute a location that is normally a JFCL, but byTE    changing the JFCL to a PUSHJ one can insert a debugging routine at     that point.  F HOME BOX (hohm boks) n. A hacker's personal machine, especially one heC    owns. "Yeah?  Well, *my* home box runs a full 4.2BSD, so there!"n  ? HOSE (hohz) 1. v. To Make non-functional or greatly degraded ineD    performance, as in "That big ray-tracing program really hoses theF    system." See HOSED. 2. n. A narrow channel through which data flowsA    under pressure.  Generally denotes data paths in a system thatnD    represent performance bottlenecks.  3.  Cabling, especially thick)    Ethernet cable.  Sometimes "bit hose".l  @ HOSED (hohzd) adj. Same as DOWN. Used primarily by UNIX hackers.F    Humorous: also implies a condition thought to be relatively easy toF    reverse.  Probably a back-formation from the Canadian slang `hoser';    popularized by the Bob and Doug skits on SCTV. See HOSE.   C HOT SPOTS (hot spotz) [primarily C/UNIX programmers, but spreading]HA    n. In most programs, less than 10% of the code eats 90% of the[F    execution time; if one were to graph instruction visits versus codeD    addresses, one would typically see a few huge spikes amidst a lotD    of low-level noise. Such spikes are called hot spots and are goodD    candidates for HAND-HACKING. The term is especially used of tightF    loops and recursions in the code's central algorithm, as opposed toE    (say) initial set-up costs or large but infrequent I/O operations.U    See TUNE, BUM, HAND-HACKING.   B HOUSE WIZARD (hows wi'zrd) [prob. from ad-agency lingo, cf. `houseD    freak'] n. A lone hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D orB    systems position at a commercial shop. A really effective house=    wizard can have influence out of all proportion to his/herGB    ostensible rank and still not have to wear a suit. Used esp. of3    UNIX experts. The term HOUSE GURU is equivalent.e  F HUMONGOUS (hyoo-mohng'gus) alt. HUMUNGOUS (hyoo-muhng'gus) See HUNGUS.  = HUMOR, HACKER (hyoo'm@r, hak'r) n. A distinct style of sharedeF    intellectual humor found among hackers, having the following marked    characteristics:H  C    1) Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humoreC       having to do with confusion of metalevels (see META). One way(D       to make a hacker laugh: hold an index card in front of him/her<       with "THIS IS GREEN" written on it in bold red ink, orB       vice-versa (note, however, that this is only funny the first       time).  F    2) Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs suchB       as standards documents, language descriptions (see INTERCAL)D       and even entire scientific theories (see QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS,       COMPUTRON).   B    3) Jokes which involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,;       ludicrous or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.A  )    4) Fascination with puns and wordplay.   >    5) A fondness for apparently mindless humor with subversive=       currents of intelligence in it, for example: old Warnerr?       Brothers and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, Charlie Chaplinh@       movies, the B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Humor>       which combines this trait with elements of high camp and&       slapstick is especially favored.  ?    6) References to the symbol-object antinomies and associatedoB       ideas in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See HAS THE X5       NATURE, DISCORDIANISM, ZEN, HA HA ONLY SERIOUS.m  B    See also FILK, COMPUTER; RETROCOMPUTING; and Appendix C. If you@    have an itchy feeling that all six of these traits are reallyB    aspects of one thing that is incredibly difficult to talk aboutE    exactly, you are a) correct and b) responding like a hacker. Thesei>    traits are also recognizable (though in a less marked form)%    throughout SCIENCE-FICTION FANDOM..  E HUNG (hung) [from "hung up"] adj. Equivalent to WEDGED, q.v. but more .    common at UNIX/C sites. Not used of people.  A HUNGUS (hung'ghis) [perhaps related to current slang "humongous";yE    which one came first (if either) is unclear] adj. Large, unwieldy,rF    usually unmanageable.  "TCP is a hungus piece of code."  "This is a     hungus set of modifications."  @ HYPERSPACE (hie'per-spays) n. A memory location within a virtualB    memory machine that is many, many megabytes (or gigabytes) awayC    from where the program counter should be pointing. "Another corecC    dump...looks like the program jumped off to hyperspace somehow."    			= I =  > IBM (ie bee em) Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually;;    Insidious Black Magic; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a C    near-INFINITE number of many even less complementary expansions,r>    including "International Business Machines". See TLA. TheseC    abbreviations illustrate the considerable antipathy most hackers D    have long felt for the "industry leader" (see FEAR AND LOATHING).F    What galls hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level isn't@    so much that they're underpowered and overpriced (though thatD    counts against them) but that the designs are incredibly archaic,F    crufty and ELEPHANTINE and you can't *fix* them -- source is lockedD    up tight and programming tools are expensive, hard to find, and a?    bitch to use once you've found them. With the release of theeD    UNIX-based RIOS family this may have begun to change -- but then,B    we thought that when the PC-RT came out, too.  In the spirit ofA    universal peace and brotherhood the jargon list now includes a @    number of entries marked `IBM'; these derive from a rampantly@    unofficial jargon list circulated among IBM's own beleaguered    hacker underground.  E ICE (ies) [from William Gibson's cyberpunk SF: notionally, "IntrusionsF    Countermeasure Electronics"] Security software. Also, ICEBREAKER: aF    program designed for cracking security on a system. Neither term isD    in serious use yet as of 1990, but many hackers find the metaphor1    attractive and they may be in the near future.n  D ILL BEHAVED (il-bee-hayvd') adj. Software which bypasses the definedB    OS interfaces to do things (like screen, keyboard and disk I/O)E    itself, often in a way that depends on the hardware of the machine A    it is running on or which is incompatible with other pieces of E    software.  In the IBM PC/MS-DOS world, where this term originated,w;    there is a folk theorem to the effect that (due to grossWB    inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS interface) all:    interesting applications are ill-behaved. See MESS-DOS.  A IMHO [from SF fandom via USENET] Written acronym for In My Humble"E    Opinion.  Example: "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, asa@    mistyping someting in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect1    errors -- and they look too Pascalish anyhow."d  = INCANTATION (in-kan-tay'shn) n. Any particularly arbitrary or @    obscure command that must be muttered at a system to attain aC    desired result. Not used of passwords or other explicit securityrD    features. Especially used of tricks that are so poorly documentedC    they must be learned from a WIZARD. E.g. "This compiler normallyeF    locates initialized data in the data segment, but if you mutter theF    right incantation they will be forced into text space". See MUTTER.  B INFINITE (in'fi-n@t) adj. Consisting of a large number of objects;E    extreme.  Used very loosely as in: "This program produces infiniteo    garbage."  C INFANT MORTALITY (in'f:nt mor-tal':-tee) n. It is common lore amongr?    hackers that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop offiD    exponentially with a machine's time since power-up (that is untilF    the relatively distant time at which mechanical wear in I/O devicesF    and thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated enough forF    the machine to start going senile). Up to half of all chip-and-wireG    failures happen within a new system's first few weeks; such failuresc8    are often referred to as "infant mortality" problems.  @ INTERCAL (in'tr-kal) [said by the authors to stand for "CompilerD    Language With No Pronounceable Acronym"] n. The language has beenE    recently re-implemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently enjoyingr*    an unprecedented level of unpopularity.  F INTERNET ADDRESS (in'ter-net @-dres') n. An `absolute' network addressC    of the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a sitee?    name, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including periodss@    itself. Contrasts with BANG PATH, q.v.; see also NETWORK. All>    Internet machines and most UUCP sites can now resolve theseE    addresses, thanks to a large amount of behind-the-scenes magic and-<    PD software written since 1980 or so. See also BANG PATH.  E INTERRUPTS LOCKED OUT (in't@-ruptz lokt owt) When someone is ignoringlD    you. In a restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get theC    waitress's attention, a hacker might well observe that "She must C    have interrupts locked out." Variations of this abound; "to haveR/    one's interrupt mask bit set" is also heard.   F IRON (iern) n. Hardware, especially older/larger hardware of mainframeC    class with big metal cabinets relatively low-density electronicscD    (but also used of modern supercomputers). Often in the phrase BIG,    IRON.  Oppose SILICON. See also DINOSAUR.  D IRON BOX (iern boks) [UNIX/Internet] n. A special environment set upB    to trap a CRACKER logging in over remote or network connectionsE    long enough so he can be traced. May include a specially-gimmicked B    SHELL restricting the hacker's movements in unobvious ways, andB    `bait' files designed to keep him interested and logged on. See    also BACK DOOR.  E IRONMONGER (iern'mohn-gr) [IBM] n. A hardware specialist. Derogatory.R&    Compare SANDBENDER, POLYGON PUSHER.  D ITS (ie-tee-ess) n. Incompatible Time-Sharing System, an influentialC    but highly idiosyncratic operating system written for PDP-10s at D    MIT and long used at the MIT AI lab; much AI-hacker slang derivesF    from ITS folklore. After about 1982 most actual work was shifted toD    newer machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run essentially as aB    hobby and service to the hacker community.  The shutdown of theB    lab's last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end of an era andB    sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide. See Appendix B.  B IWBNI [acronym] It Would Be Nice If.  No pronunciation, as this is-    never spoken, only written. Compare WIBNI.M  E IYFEG [USENET] Abbreviation for "Insert Your Favourite Ethnic Group".tB    Used as a meta-name when telling racist jokes in email to avoid    offending anyone.   			= J =  C JAGGIES (jag'eez) n. The `stairstep' effect observable when an edge E    (esp. a linear edge of slope far from 45 degrees) is rendered on at1    pixel device (as opposed to a vector display).   D JIFFY (jif'ee) n. 1. Interval of CPU time, commonly 1/60 second or 1D    millisecond (see TICK).  2. Indeterminate time from a few secondsB    to forever. "I'll do it in a jiffy" means certainly not now and    possibly never.  C JOCK (jok) n. Programmer who is characterized by large and somewhatvB    brute force programs.  The term is particularly well-suited for    systems programmers.,  A JOE CODE (joh kohd) [said to commemmorate a notoriously bad codern?    named Joe at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory] n. Badly written,aD    possibly buggy source code.  "Perl may be a handy program, but if3    you look at the source, it's complete joe code."e 	sA J. RANDOM HACKER (jay rand'm hak'r) n. A mythical figure like the';    Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd. See RANDOM.    			= K =  B KAHUNA (k@-hoo'nuh) [IBM, from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] n.$    Synonym for WIZARD, GURU (q.v.).   B KEN (ken) n. A flaming user.  This noun was in use by the SoftwareE    Support group at Symbolics because the two greatest flamers in then&    user community were both named Ken.  D KILL FILE (kill fiel) [USENET] n. Some USENET readers allow users toE    set filter patterns against which news messages are compared, thenrC    ignored (not presented by the reader) if the match succeeds. TheaD    file in which these patterns are stored is called the user's killF    file.  Thus to "add a person (or subject) to one's kill file" is toF    arrange for that person to be ignored by your newsreader in future.F    By extension, it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or    subject in other media.  @ KILLER MICRO (kil'r mi'kroh) [popularized by Eugene Brooks] n. AD    microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe orF    supercomputer performance turf. Often heard in "No one will survive;    the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of ther6    downsizers. Used esp. of RISC (q.v.) architectures.  4 KLEENE STAR (kleen star) n. See REGULAR EXPRESSIONS.  E KLUGE (kloodj) alt. KLUDGE (kluhdj) [from the German "kluge", clever]vB    (`kloodj' is the original pronunciation, more common in the US;?    `kluhdge' is reported more common in England).  n. 1. A Rube D    Goldberg device in hardware or software.  2. A clever programmingF    trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an efficient, ifB    not clear, manner.  Often used to repair bugs.  Often verges onD    being a crock.  3. Something that works for the wrong reason.  4.E    v. To insert a kluge into a program.  "I've kluged this routine to A    get around that weird bug, but there's probably a better way."bF    Also KLUGE UP.  5. KLUGE AROUND: To avoid by inserting a kluge.  6.9    [WPI] A feature which is implemented in a RUDE manner.'   			= L =  E LACE CARD (lays kard) n. obs. A Hollerith card with all holes punched D    (also called a WHOOPEE CARD). Some cardpunches actually jammed on0    the amount of CHAD generated by one of these.  E LANGUAGE LAWYER (lan'gw@j law'yr) n. A person, usually an experienced D    or senior software engineer, who is intimately familiar with manyD    or most of the numerous syntactic and semantic restrictions (bothF    useful and esoteric) applicable to one or more computer programming
    languages.   E LANGUAGES OF CHOICE n. C or LISP. Essentially all hackers know one ofaD    these and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and PrologC    are popular in small but influential communities. Assembler used D    to be a language of choice, but is generally no longer considered<    interesting or appropriate for anything but compiler code?    generation and a few time-critical uses in systems programs.s  A LARVAL STAGE (lar'vl stayj) n. Describes a period of monomaniacal F    concentration on coding apparently passed through by all fledgelingF    hackers. Common symptoms include: the perpetration of more than one<    36-hour HACKING RUN in a given week, neglect of all otherE    activities including usual basics like food and sex, and a chronic2F    case of advanced bleary-eye. Can last from six months to two years,B    with the apparent median being around eighteen months. A few soD    afflicted never resume a more `normal' life, but the ordeal seemsC    to be necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed to merely C    competent) programmers. A less protracted and intense version ofF@    larval stage (typically lasting about a month) may recur when-    learning a new OS or programming language.`  C LASE (layz) vt. To print a given document via a laser printer. "OK,SC    let's lase that sucker and see if all those graphics-macro callsc7    did the right things." Compare DIABLO in Appendix B.l  F LERP (lerp) v.,n. Quasi-acronym for Linear Interpolation, used as as aC    verb or noun for the operation. Ex.  Bresenham's algorithm lerpsC7    incrementally between the two endpoints of the line.w  E LEXER (lek'sr) n. Common hacker shorthand for "lexical analyzer", thesF    input-tokenizing stage in the parser for a language. "Some C lexers6    get confused by the old-style compound ops like =-"  ? LIFE (lief) n. A cellular-automata game invented by John HortonPF    Conway, and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner (Scientific@    American, October 1970). Many hackers pass through a stage of    fascination with it.a  ; LINE EATER, THE (lien ee'tr, dh@) [USENET] n. A bug in someiB    now-obsolete versions of the netnews software used to cause theD    first lines of articles to be discarded under some circumstances.C    This bug was personified into mythical creature called "the lineaB    eater", and postings often included a dummy line of "line eaterC    food". The practice of "sacrificing to the line eater" continuedSB    for some time after the bug had been nailed to the wall, and is     still humorously referred to.  F LINE STARVE (lien stahrv) [MIT] Inverse of `line feed'; a character or@    character sequence which causes a printer to back up one line	    depth.l  C LINK FARM (link farm) [UNIX] n. A directory tree that contains manynF    links to files another, master directory tree of files.  Link farmsE    save space when maintaining several nearly identical copies of thek5    same source tree, e.g. when the only difference isbC    architecture-dependent object files.  Example use: `Let's freeze ?    the source and then rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 linkoD    farms.' Link farms may also be used to get around restrictions on7    the number of -I arguments on older C preprocessors.0  E LINT (lint) [from UNIX's lint(1)] v. To examine a program closely fornF    style, language usage, and portability problems, esp. if in C, esp.@    if via use of automated analysis tools, most esp. if the UNIXE    utility lint(1) is used. This term used to be restricted to use ofmF    lint(1) itself but (judging by references on the USENET) has becomeD    a shorthand for `desk-check' at some non-UNIX shops, even in some    languages other than C.  B LION FOOD (lie'@n food) [IBM] n. Middle management or HQ staff (byG    extension, administrative drones in general). From an old joke aboutnC    two lions who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their F    chances but agreed to meet after two months. When they do meet, oneE    is skinny and the other overweight. The thin one says "How did you F    manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army toK    chase me -- guns, nets, it was terrible. Since then I've been reduced to H    eating mice, insects, even grass." The fat one replies "Well, *I* hidH    near an IBM office and ate a manager a day. And nobody even noticed!"  F LISP (lisp) n. The name of AI's mother tongue, a language based on theB    ideas of 1) variable-length lists and trees as fundamental dataC    types, and 2) the interpretation of code as data and vice-versa.fA    Invented by John McCarthy at Stanford in the late 1950s, it is F    actually older than any other HLL still in use except FORTRAN.  TheF    hands-down favorite of hackers until the early 1980s, it now shares5    the throne with C (q.v.). See LANGUAGES OF CHOICE.d  D LITTLE-ENDIAN (lit'l-end'y@n) adj. Describes a computer architectureD    in which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, lower byte addressesC    have lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first'). 8    The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and a lot of@    communications and networking hardware are little-endian. See    BIG-ENDIAN.  E LIVELOCK (liev'lok) n.  A situation in which some critical stage of a B    task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually createC    more work for it to do after they've been serviced but before it ?    can clear.  Differs from DEADLOCK in that the process is notl@    blocked or waiting for anything, but has a virtually infinite1    amount of work to do and accomplishes nothing.n  > LOGIC BOMB (lo'jik bom) n. Code surreptitiously inserted in anC    application or OS which causes it to perform some destructive or C    security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are     met.  Compare BACK DOOR.e  E LOGICAL (lo'ji-kl) [from the technical term "logical device", wherein >    a physical device is referred to by an arbitrary name] adj.@    Understood to have a meaning not necessarily corresponding toF    reality.  E.g., if a person who has long held a certain post (e.g.,D    Les Earnest at SAIL) left and was replaced, the replacement would?    for a while be known as the "logical Les Earnest".  The wordo?    VIRTUAL is also used.  At SAIL, "logical" compass directions E    denoted a coordinate system in which "logical north" is toward San C    Francisco, "logical west" is toward the ocean, etc., even though >    logical north varies between physical (true) north near SanA    Franscisco and physical west near San Jose.  (The best rule ofwF    thumb here is that El Camino Real by definition always runs logical    north-and-south.)  C LORD HIGH FIXER (lord hie fik'sr) [primarily British] n. The person ?    in an organisation who knows the most about some aspect of ao    system. See WIZARD.  E LOSE (looz) [from MIT jargon] v. 1. To fail.  A program loses when itp?    encounters an exceptional condition.  2. To be exceptionallyiF    unaesthetic.  3. Of people, to be obnoxious or unusually stupid (asD    opposed to ignorant).  4. DESERVE TO LOSE: v. Said of someone whoD    willfully does the wrong thing; humorously, if one uses a feature@    known to be marginal.  What is meant is that one deserves theC    consequences of one's losing actions.  "Boy, anyone who tries toeB    use MULTICS deserves to lose!" See also SCREW, CHOMP, BAGBITER.1    LOSE LOSE - a reply or comment on a situation.n  E LOSER (loo'zr) n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer,o'    or person.  Especially "real loser".I  : LOSS (los) n. Something which loses.  WHAT A (MOBY) LOSS!:    interjection.  7 LOSSAGE (los'@j) n. The result of a bug or malfunction.e  ? LPT (lip'it) [ITS] n. Line printer, of course. Rare under UNIX,eB    commoner in hackers with MS-DOS or CP/M background (the printer>    device is called LPT: on those systems, which like ITS were1    strongly influenced by early DEC conventions).c  N LURKER (ler'ker) n. One of the `silent majority' in a USENET or BBS newsgroup;D    one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read theE    group regularly. Often in `THE LURKERS', the hypothetical audiencey$    for the group's FLAMING regulars.  7 LUNATIC FRINGE (l[y]oo'na-tik frinj) [IBM] n. Customers-C    who can be relied upon to accept release 1 versions of software.s   LUSER (loo'zr)  See USER.e   			= M =  > MACDINK (mak'dink) [from the Apple Macintosh, which is said to<    encourage such behavior] v.  To make many incremental andE    unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file.  Frequently thehC    subject of the macdinking would be better off without them.  Ex:dF    "When I left at 11pm last night, he was still macdinking the slides    for his presentation."p  A MACRO (mak'ro) n. A name (possibly followed by a formal ARG list)UF    which is equated to a text expression to which it is to be expandedA    (possibly with substitution of actual arguments) by a languaget<    translator. This definition can be found in any technical;    dictionary; what those won't tell you is how the hackishnD    connotations of the term have changed over time. The term `macro'F    originated in early assemblers, which encouraged use of macros as aB    structuring and information-hiding device. During the early 70sE    macro assemblers became ubiquitous and sometimes quite as powerfulg>    and expensive as HLLs, only to fall from favor as improving>    compiler technology marginalized assembler programming (see@    LANGUAGES OF CHOICE). Nowadays the term is most often used in>    connection with the C preprocessor, LISP, or one of severalD    special-purpose languages built around a macro-expansion facilityB    (such as TEX or UNIX's nroff, troff and pic suite). Indeed, theA    meaning has drifted enough that the collective `macros' is nowiE    sometimes used for code in any special-purpose application-control <    control language, whether or not the language is actually     translated by text expansion.  E MACROLOGY (mak-ro'l@-jee) n. Set of usually complex or crufty macros,o@    e.g. as part of a large system written in LISP, TECO or (lessE    commonly) assembler.  Sometimes studying the macrology of a systemrA    is not unlike archaeology, hence the sound-alike construction.d'    Prob. influenced by THEOLOGY (q.v.).   B MANGO (mang'go) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n.  A manager.    See also DEVO and DOCO.  @ MACROTAPE (ma'kro-tayp) n. An industry standard reel of tape, as    opposed to a MICROTAPE.  @ MAGIC (ma'jik) adj. 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated toE    explain.  (compare Clarke's Second Law: "Any sufficiently advancedmA    technology is indistinguishable from magic".)  "TTY echoing isl>    controlled by a large number of magic bits."  "This routine>    magically computes the parity of an eight-bit byte in threeC    instructions."  2. [Stanford] A feature not generally publicizedPE    which allows something otherwise impossible, or a feature formerlyLD    in that category but now unveiled. Example: The keyboard commands-    which override the screen-hiding features.   E MAGIC COOKIE (ma'jik cuk'ee) [UNIX] n. 1. A thing that allows anothere=    thing to do something, usually as part of a crufty hack. AnB    capability ticket.  Especially used of small data objects which5    contain data encoded in a strange or intrinsically ?    machine-dependent way. 2. Blank left on the screen when yoursC    terminal changes modes. Some older terminals would print a blankiB    when you entered and exited special modes, such as underline or(    flash. This was also called a GLITCH.  C MAGIC NUMBER (ma'jik nuhm'br) [UNIX/C] n. 1. A MAGIC COOKIE locatedrC    at the beginning of a binary data file to indicate its type to a C    utility. Under UNIX the system and various applications programsnE    (especially the linker) distinguish between types of executable bynB    looking for a magic number. 2. In source code, some non-obviousD    constant whose value is significant to the operation of a programF    and is inserted inconspicuously in line, rather than expanded in byC    a symbol set by a commented #define. Magic numbers in this senser    are bad style.T  D MAGIC SMOKE (ma'jik smohk) n. A notional substance trapped inside IC;    packages that enables them to function. Its existence isoA    demonstrated by what happens when a chip burns up -- the magicsC    smoke gets let out, so it doesn't work any more. See SMOKE TEST.e  @ MANGLE (mang'gl) v. Used similarly to MUNG or SCRIBBLE, but moreB    violent in its connotations; something that is mangled has been$    irreversibly and totally trashed.  C MARGINAL (mar-j@-nl) adj. 1. Extremely small.  "A marginal increaseeD    in core can decrease GC time drastically."  2. Of extremely smallC    merit.  "This proposed new feature seems rather marginal to me."iC    3. Of extremely small probability of winning.  "The power supplyT=    was rather marginal anyway; no wonder it crapped out."  4.aB    MARGINALLY: adv.  Slightly.  "The ravs here are only marginally&    better than at Small Eating Place."  B MARKETROID (mar'k@-troyd) alt. MARKETING SLIME, MARKETING DROID n.E    Member of a company's marketing department, esp.  one who promises D    users that the next version of a product will have features whichF    are unplanned, extremely difficult to implement, and/or violate the0    laws of physics. Derogatory. Used by techies.  D MARTIAN (mar'shn) n. A packet sent on a TCP/IP network with a sourceB    address of the test loopback interface (127.0.0.1).  As in "TheA    domain server is getting lots of packets from Mars.  Does thatl"    gateway have a Martian filter?"  : MASSAGE (m@-sahj') v. Vague term used to describe `smooth'>    transformations of a data set into a more useful form, esp.D    transformations which do not lose information. Connotes less painE    and more ELEGANCE than MUNCH or CRUNCH (q.v.). "He wrote a programa?    that massages X bitmap files into GIF format" Compare SLURP.   ? MEATWARE (meet'weir) n. Synonym for WETWARE (q.v.) Less common.   9 MEGAPENNY (meg'a-pen'ee) n. $10,000 (1 cent * 10e6). UsedsC    semi-humorously as a unit in comparing computer cost/performancei    figures.n  = MEGO (mego, meego) [Mine Eyes Glazeth Over] Also MEGO FACTOR.nC    Handwaving intended to confuse the listener and hopefully induce ?    agreement because the listener does not want to admit to noteF    understanding what is going on.  MEGO is usually directed at seniorA    management by engineers and contains a high proportion of TLAs     (qv).  , MELTDOWN (melt'down) n. See BROADCAST STORM.  D MEME (meem) [coined on analogy with `gene' by Richard Dawkins] n. An@    idea considered as a REPLICATOR. Used esp. in the prase `memeD    complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes which formF    an organized belief system, such as a religion.  This dictionary isE    a vector of the "hacker subculture" meme complex; each entry mighteB    be considered a meme.  However, "meme" is often misused to meanG    "meme complex". Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that)F    in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sentients)C    cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded :    biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits.  B MEMETICS (mee-me-tiks) [from MEME] The study of memes. As of 1990,@    this is still an extremely informal and speculative endeavor,F    though the first steps towards at least statistical rigor have beenB    made by H. Keith Henson and others. Memetics is a popular topicE    among hackers, who like to see themselves as the architects of thet?    new information ecologies in which memes live and replicate.A  C MEME PLAGUE n. The spread of a successful but pernicious MEME, esp.[?    one which `parasitizes' the victims into giving their all to=D    propagate it.  Astrology, BASIC, and the other guy's religion areD    often considered to be examples. This usage is given point by theC    historical fact that `joiner' ideologies like Naziism or variousWF    forms of millenarian Christianity have exhibited plague-like cyclesB    of exponential growth followed by collapse to small `reservoir'    populations.s  B MEMORY LEAK (mem'@-ree leek) [C/UNIX programmers] n. An error in aE    program's dynamic-store allocation logic that causes it to fail to A    reclaim discarded memory, leading to attempted hogging of maineE    store and eventual collapse due to memory exhaustion. See ALIASINGpF    SCREW, FANDANGO ON CORE, SMASH THE STACK, PRECEDENCE SCREW, OVERRUN	    SCREW.f  F MENUITIS (men`yoo-i'tis) n. Notional disease suffered by software withF    an obsessively simple-minded menu interface and no escape.  HackersD    find this intensely irritating and much prefer the flexibility of>    command-line or language-style interfaces, especially thoseE    customizable via macros or a special-purpose language in which oned    can encode useful hacks.h  D MESS-DOS (mes-dos) [UNIX hackers] n. Derisory term for MS-DOS. OftenF    followed by the ritual expurgation "Just Say No!". See MS-DOS. Most;    hackers (even many MS-DOS hackers) loathe MS-DOS for its C    single-tasking nature, its limits on application size, its nastye=    primitive interface, and its ties to IBMness (see FEAR ANDr/    LOATHING). Also "mess-loss", and "mess-dog".w  F META (mayt'@) [from analytic philosophy] adj. One level of descriptionF    up.  Thus, a meta-syntactic variable is a variable in notation usedD    to describe syntax and meta-language is language used to describeB    language. This is difficult to explain out of context, but muchB    hacker humor turns on deliberate confusion between meta-levels.  > META BIT (mayt'@) n. Bit 8 of an 8-bit character, on in values?    128-255. Also called HIGH BIT or ALT BIT. Some terminals and B    consoles (especially those designed for LISP traditions) have aF    META-shift key. Others (including, mirabile dictu, keyboards on IBM;    PC-class machines) have an ALT key. See also BUCKY BITS.   G MICROFLOPPIES (mie'kroh-flo-peez) n. 3-1/2 inch floppies, as opposed tosF    5-1/4 VANILLA floppies and the now-obsolescent 8-inch variety. ThisC    term may be headed for obsolescence as 5-1/4 inchers pass out off@    use, only to be revived if anybody floats a sub-3-inch floppy    standard.  C MICROTAPE (mi'kroh-tayp) n. Occasionally used to mean a DECtape, asI    opposed to a MACROTAPE.  = MISFEATURE (mis-fee'chr) n. A feature which eventually screwseC    someone, possibly because it is not adequate for a new situationsD    which has evolved.  It is not the same as a bug because fixing it@    involves a gross philosophical change to the structure of the@    system involved.  Often a former feature becomes a misfeatureD    because a tradeoff was made whose parameters subsequently changedE    (possibly only in the judgment of the implementors).  "Well, yeah, ?    it's kind of a misfeature that file names are limited to sixc0    characters, but we're stuck with it for now."  C MOBY (moh'bee) [seems to have been in use among model railroad fans A    years ago.  Derived from Melville's "Moby Dick" (some say fromeA    "Moby Pickle").]  1. adj. Large, immense, or complex.  "A mobyiF    frob."  2.  n. The maximum address space of a machine (see Appendix@    B).  3. A title of address (never of third-person reference),E    usually used to show admiration, respect, and/or friendliness to aOF    competent hacker.  "So, moby Knight, how's the CONS machine doing?"B    4. adj. In backgammon, doubles on the dice, as in "moby sixes",F    "moby ones", etc.  MOBY FOO, MOBY WIN, MOBY LOSS: standard emphatic>    forms.  FOBY MOO: a spoonerism due to Greenblatt.  The MOBY5    constructions are now relatively rare outside MIT.y  > MODE (mohd) n. A general state, usually used with an adjective@    describing the state.  "No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode."A    Usage: in its jargon sense, MODE is most often said of people,eD    though it is sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects.?    "If you're on a TTY, E will switch to non-display mode."  InsB    particular, see HACK MODE, DAY MODE, NIGHT MODE, and YOYO MODE;.    also COM MODE, TALK MODE, and GABRIEL MODE.  9 MODULO (mod'yuh-low) prep. Except for.  From mathematicaloF    terminology: one can consider saying that 4=22 "except for the 9's"D    (4=22 mod 9).  "Well, LISP seems to work okay now, modulo that GC    bug."  F MONKEY UP (muhn'kee uhp) v. To hack together hardware for a particularD    task, especially a one-shot job. Connotes an extremely CRUFTY and"    consciously temporary solution.  > MONSTROSITY (mon-stro'si-tee) 1. n. A ridiculously ELEPHANTINE@    program or system, esp. one which is buggy or only marginally@    functional. 2.  The quality of being monstrous (see `Peculiar0    nouns' in the discussion of jargonification).  @ MOORE'S LAW (morz law) [folklore] The observation that the logicB    density of silicon integrated circuits has closely followed theD    curve (bits per inch ** 2) = 2 ** (n - 1962); that is, the amountD    of information storable in one square inch of silicon has roughly?    doubled yearly every year since the technology was invented.e  = MOTAS (moh-tahs) [USENET, Member Of The Appropriate Sex] n. AiB    potential or (less often) actual sex partner. See MOTOS, MOTSS,    S.O.e  D MOTOS (moh-tohs) [USENET, Member Of The Other Sex] n. A potential orF    (less often) actual sex partner. See MOTAS, MOTSS, S.O. Less common7    than MOTSS or MOTAS, which has largely displaced it.l  D MOTSS (mots) [USENET, Member Of The Same Sex] n. Esp. one considered?    as a possible sexual partner, e.g. by a gay or lesbian.  Thef@    gay-issues board on USENET is called soc.motss. See MOTOS and-    MOTAS, which derive from it. Also see S.O.i  F MOUNT (mownt) v. 1. To attach a removable storage volume to a machine.<    In elder days and on mainframes this verb was used almostD    exclusively of tapes; nowadays (especially under UNIX) it is moreC    likely to refer to a disk volume. 2. By extension, to attach anyoF    removable device such as a sensor, robot arm, or MEATWARE subsystem    (see Appendix A).  E MOUSE AROUND (mows ar-ownd') v. To explore public portions of a largeyE    system, esp. a network such as Internet via FTP or TELNET, lookingo"    for interesting stuff to SNARF.  B MOUSO (mow'so) n. [by analogy with `typo'] An error in mouse usageD    resulting in an inappropriate selection or graphic garbage on the
    screen.  B MS-DOS (em-es-dahs) n. A clone of CP/M (q.v.) for the 8088 cruftedE    together in six weeks by hacker Tim Patterson, who is said to haven>    regretted it ever since.  Now the highest-unit-volume OS in    history. See MESS-DOS.s  D MULTICS (muhl'tiks) n. [from Multi-Tasking Computer System] An early=    (late 1960s) timesharing operating system co-designed by aw@    consortium including Honeywell and Bell Laboratories. All theE    members but Honeywell eventually pulled out after determining thatO=    SECOND-SYSTEM SYNDROME had bloated Multics to the point ofoE    practical unusability (though Honeywell did later comercialize it, D    it was never very successful).  One of the developers left in theB    lurch by the project's breakup was Ken Thompson, a circumstanceE    which led directly to the birth of UNIX (q.v.). For this and otheroE    reasons aspects of the Multics design remain a topic of occasional./    debate among hackers. See also BRAIN DAMAGE.   F MUMBLAGE (mum'bl@j) n. The topic of one's mumbling (see MUMBLE).  "AllD    that mumblage" is used like "all that stuff" when it is not quiteA    clear what it is or how it works, or like "all that crap" when E    "mumble" is being used as an implicit replacement for obscenities.a  C MUMBLE (mum'bl) interj. 1. Said when the correct response is eithermF    too complicated to enunciate or the speaker has not thought it out.D    Often prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctanceD    to get into a big long discussion.  "Well, mumble."  2. SometimesF    used as an expression of disagreement.  "I think we should buy it."+    "Mumble!"  Common variant: MUMBLE FROTZ.t  M MUNCH (muhnch) [often confused with "mung", q.v.] v. To transform informationnE    in a serial fashion, often requiring large amounts of computation.`A    To trace down a data structure.  Related to CRUNCH (q.v.), butc    connotes less pain.  F MUNCHING SQUARES (muhnch'ing skweirz) n. A DISPLAY HACK dating back toD    the PDP-1, which employs a trivial computation (involving XOR'ingD    of x-y display coordinates - see HAKMEM items 146-148) to produceC    an impressive display of moving, growing, and shrinking squares. >    The hack usually has a parameter (usually taken from toggleF    switches) which when well-chosen can produce amazing effects.  Some?    of these, discovered recently on the LISP machine, have beeniC    christened MUNCHING TRIANGLES, MUNCHING W'S, and MUNCHING MAZES.f  F MUNCHKIN (muhnch'kin) n. A teenage-or-younger micro enthusiast bashing>    BASIC or something else equally constricted. A term of mildD    derision -- munchkins are annoying but some grow up to be hackersF    after passing through a LARVAL STAGE. The term URCHIN is also used.    See also BITTY BOX.  D MUNDANE (muhn-dayn') [from SF fandom] n.  1.  A person who is not inB    science fiction fandom. 2.  A person who is not in the computerC    industry. In this sense, most often an adjectival modifier as ine    "in my mundane life..."  D MUNG (muhng) alt. MUNGE (muhnj) [recursive acronym for Mung Until NoE    Good] v. 1.  To make changes to a file, often large-scale, usually C    irrevocable.  Occasionally accidental.  See BLT.  2. To destroy,aC    usually accidentally, occasionally maliciously.  The system onlymF    mungs things maliciously. See SCRIBBLE, MANGLE, TRASH. Reports from?    USENET suggest that the prononciation `munj' is now usual inc:    speech, but `mung' is still common in program comments.  @ MUSIC (myoo's@k) n. A common extracurricular interest of hackersF    (compare SCIENCE-FICTION FANDOM, ORIENTAL FOOD; see also FILK).  It?    is widely believed among hackers that there is a substantialiA    correlation between whatever mysterious traits underly hackingeC    ability (on the one hand) and musical talent and sensitivity (on.E    the other). It is certainly the case that hackers, as a rule, likes>    music and often develop musical appreciation in unusual andE    interesting directions.  Folk music is very big in hacker circles;sE    so is the sort of elaborate instrumental jazz/rock that used to bedC    called `progressive' and isn't recorded much any more. Also, theiF    hacker's musical range tends to be wide; many can listen with equalE    appreciation to (say) Talking Heads, Yes, Spirogyra, Scott Joplin,o?    King Sunny Ade, The Pretenders, or one of Bach's BrandenburgeF    Concerti. It is also apparently true that hackerdom includes a muchD    higher concentration of talented amateur musicians than one would9    expect from a similar-sized control group of MUNDANES.m  D MUTTER (muh'tr) v. To quietly enter a command not meant for the ears>    of ordinary mortals. Frequently in "mutter an INCANTATION".   			= N =  E N (en) adj. 1. Some large and indeterminate number of objects; "ThereeD    were N bugs in that crock!"; also used in its original sense of aA    variable name.  2. An arbitrarily large (and perhaps infinite) A    number.  3. A variable whose value is specified by the current C    context.  "We'd like to order N wonton soups and a family dinnerbE    for N-1."  4. NTH: adj. The ordinal counterpart of N. "Now for thed@    Nth and last time..."  In the specific context "Nth-year gradF    student", N is generally assumed to be at least 4, and is usually 5%    or more.  See also RANDOM NUMBERS.i  F NAILED TO THE WALL (nayld too dh@ wahl) [like a trophy] adj. Said of aB    bug finally eliminated after protracted and even heroic effort.  D NANOACRE (nan'o-ay-kr) n. An area of space, or real-estate on a VLSIF    chip.  The term derives its amusement value from the fact that VLSI@    nanoacres have costs in the same range as real acres once one1    figures in design and fabrication-setup costs.i  F NANOBOT (nan'oh-bot) n. A robot of microscopic proportions, presumably>    built by means of NANOTECHNOLOGY (q.v.).  As yet, only used;    informally (and speculatively!). Also sometimes called ay    `nanoagent'.   E NANOCOMPUTER (nan'oh-k:m-pyoo-tr) a computer whose switching elements E    are molecular in size.  Designs for mechanical nanocomputers which =    use single-molecule sliding rods for their logic have been C    proposed.  The controller for a NANOBOT would be a nanocomputer.s  D NANOTECHNOLOGY (nan'-oh-tek-naw`l:-ji) n. A hypothetical fabrication>    technology in which objects are designed and built with theD    individual specification and placement of each separate atom. TheF    first unequivocal nano-fabrication experiments are taking place nowD    (1990), for example with the deposition of individual Xenon atomsB    on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very largeE    computer company by two of its physicists. Nanotechnology has beenyF    a hot topic in the hacker subculture ever since the term was coinedA    by K. Eric Drexler in his book "Engines of Creation", where he ?    predicted that nanotechnology could give rise to replicating C    ASSEMBLERs, permitting an exponential growth of productivity and     personal wealth.y  F NASTYGRAM (nas'tee-gram) n. 1. A protocol packet or item of email thatA    takes advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the targetr<    system to do untoward things (the latter is also called aE    `letterbomb'). 2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a net.god, pursuante     to a violation of NETIQUETTE.  ? NEOPHILIA (nee-oh-fil'-ee-uh) n. The trait of being excited andTA    pleased by novelty. Common trait of most hackers, SF fans, anda@    members of several other connected "leading-edge" subculturesA    including the pro-technology "Whole-Earth" wing of the ecologytF    movement, space activists, theater people, the membership of MENSA,E    and the Discordian/neo-pagan underground. All these groups overlap :    heavily and (where evidence is available) seem to shareB    characteristic hacker tropisms for SF, MUSIC and ORIENTAL FOOD.  A NET POLICE (net p@-lees') n.  Those USENET readers who feel it is,E    their responsibility to pounce on and FLAME any posting which theyoA    regard as offensive, or in violation of their understanding ofEB    NETIQUETTE.  Generally used sarcastically or pejoratively. Also.    spelled `net.police'. See also CODE POLICE.  ) NETHACK (net'hak) n. See HACK, sense #12.m  ? NETIQUETTE (net'ee-ket, net'i-ket) n. Conventions of politenesse?    recognized on USENET, such as: avoidance of cross-posting tooF    inappropriate groups, or refraining from commercial pluggery on the    net,E  C NEEP-NEEP (neep neep) [onomatopoic, from New York SF fandom] n. OneeB    who is fascinated by computers. More general than HACKER, as itD    need not imply more skill than is required to boot games on a PC.9    The term NEEP-NEEPING applies specifically to the long D    conversations about computers that tend to develop in the cornersE    at most SF-convention parties. Fandom has a related proverb to thenC    effect that "Hacking is a conversational black hole!" [which, byt4    coincidence, has been attributed to my SO -- ESR]  A NET. (net dot) [USENET] Prefix used to describe people and eventseC    related to USENET.  From the pre-GREAT-RENAMING newsgroup names,i?    e.g. net.singles.  Includes net.god(s) (q.v.), net.goddessese@    (various charismatic women with circles of on-line admirers),D    net.lurkers, (see LURKER), net.parties (a synonym for BOINK sense*    #2 (q.v.)) and many similar constructs.  C NET.GOD (net god) n. Used to refer to anyone who has satisfies sometF    combination of the following conditions: has been visible on USENETD    for more than five years, ran one of the original backbone sites,B    moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news software, or knowsC    Gene, Mark, Rick, Henry, Chuq, and Greg personally. See DEMIGOD.S  A NETWORK ADDRESS (netwerk @-dres') n. As used by hackers, means anl@    address on THE NETWORK (almost always a BANG PATH or INTERNET>    ADDRESS). An essential to be taken seriously by hackers; inD    particular, persons or organizations claiming to understand, workD    with, sell to, or recruit from among hackers that *don't* display@    net addresses are quietly presumed to be clueless poseurs andE    mentally FLUSHED (sense #3). Hackers often put their net addresses F    on their business cards and wear them prominently in contexts where;    they expect to meet other hackers face-to-face (see alsoSC    SCIENCE-FICTION FANDOM) This is mostly functional, but is also aOD    connotative signal that one identifies with hackerdom (like lodgeD    pins among Masons or tie-died T-shirts among Grateful Dead fans).?    Net addresses are often used in email text as a more conciseuB    substitute for personal names; indeed, hackers may come to knowD    each other quite well by network names without ever learning each    others' `legal' monikers.  F NETWORK, THE (net'werk, dh@) n. 1. The union of all the major academicC    and noncommercial/hacker-oriented networks such as Internet, the >    old ARPANET, NSFNet, BITNET and the virtual UUCP and USENETF    "networks", plus the corporate in-house networks that gate to them.?    A site is generally considered `on the network' if it can beBB    reached through some compination of Internet-style (@-sign) and?    UUCP (bang-path) addresses. See BANG PATH, INTERNET ADDRESS,d<    NETWORK ADDRESS. 2. A fictional conspiracy of libertarianF    hacker-subversives and anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers describedD    in Robert Anton Wilson's novel _Schrodinger's_Cat_, to which manyD    hackers have subsequently decided they belong (this is an example    of HA HA, ONLY SERIOUS).a  > NEWGRP WARS (n[y]oo'grp wohrz) [USENET] n. Salvoes of duellingD    `newgrp' and `rmgroup' messages sometimes exchanged by persons onA    opposite sides of a dispute over whether a NEWSGROUP should be.D    created netwide. These usually settle out within a week or two as@    it becomes clear whether the group has a natural constituency@    (usually, it doesn't). At times, especially in the completelyA    anarchicic `alt' hierarchy, the names of newsgroups themselvesr8    become a form of comment or humor; cf. the spinoff ofE    alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork from alt.tv.muppets in early 1990, E    or any number of specialized abuse groups named after particularly     notorious flamers.d  D NEWSFROUP (n[y]oos'froop) [USENET] n. Silly written-only synonym forE    NEWSGROUP, originated as a typo but now in regular use on USENET'Si:    talk.bizarre and other not-real-tightly-wrapped groups.  F NEWSGROUP (n[y]oos'groop) [USENET] n. One of USENET's large collection=    of topic groups. Among the best-known are comp.lang.c (the ;    C-language forum), comp.unix.wizards (for UNIX wizards), 4    rec.arts.sf-lovers (for science-fiction fans) and>    talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous political discussions and    flamage).  0 NIGHT MODE (niet mohd) n. See PHASE (of people).  A NIL (nil) [from LISP terminology for "false"] No.  Usage: used in =    reply to a question, particularly one asked using the "-P"e    convention.  See T.  A NON-OPTIMAL SOLUTION (non-op'ti-m@l so-lu'shn) n. An astoundinglymF    stupid way to do something.  This term is generally used in deadpanD    sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person speaking looks=    completely serious.  Compare STUNNING. See also BAD THING.e  E NONTRIVIAL (non-tri'vi-@l) adj. Requiring real thought or significantdF    computing power.  Often used as an understated way of saying that a:    problem is quite difficult. See TRIVIAL, UNINTERESTING.  < NO-OP (noh-op) alt. NOP (nop) [no operation] n. 1. A machineC    instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in assembler-levelyE    programming as filler for data areas). 2. A person who contributesdF    nothing to a project, or has nothing going on upstairs, or both. As    in "he's a no-op."D  F NP- (en pee) pref.  Extremely.  Used to modify adjectives describing aF    level or quality of difficulty.  "Getting this algorithm to performE    correctly in every case is NP-annoying."  This is generalized fromOE    the computer science terms "NP-hard" and "NP-easy".  NP is the setO@    of Nondeterministic-Polynomial algorithms, those which can beD    completed by a nondeterministic finite state machine in an amountC    of time that is a polynomial function of the size of the input.)g  H NUKE (nook) v. 1. To intentionally delete the entire contents of a given>    directory or storage volume. "On UNIX, rm -r /usr will nuke?    everything in the usr filesystem." Never used for accidentalrC    deletion. Oppose BLOW AWAY. 2. Syn. for DYKE, applied to smaller.,    things such as features or code sections.  > NUXI PROBLEM, THE (nuk'see pro'blm, dh@) n. This refers to the?    problem of transferring data between machines with differingaD    byte-order. The string "UNIX" might look like "NUXI" on a machineD    with a different "byte sex". See also, BIG-ENDIAN, LITTLE-ENDIAN,    SWAB, and BYTESEXUAL.   			= O =  > OBSCURE (ob'skyoor) adj. Used in an exaggeration of its normalD    meaning, to imply a total lack of comprehensibility.  "The reason>    for that last crash is obscure."  "FIND's command syntax isE    obscure."  MODERATELY OBSCURE implies that it could be figured outSD    but probably isn't worth the trouble. OBSCURE IN THE EXTREME is a    preferred emphatic form.n  D OBFUSCATED C CONTEST (ob'fus-cay-ted see kon'test) n. Annual contestE    run since 1984 over THE NETWORK by Landon Curt Noll & friends. ThebF    overall winner is he who produces the most unreadable, creative andE    bizarre working C program; various other prizes are awarded at thec>    judges' whim. Given C's terse syntax and macro-preprocessorD    facilities, this given contestants a lot of maneuvering room. THeB    winning programs often manage to be simultaneously a) funny, b)F    breathtaking works of art, and c) Horrible Examples of how *not* to
    code in C.l  C OCTAL FORTY (ok'tl for'tee) n. Hackish way of saying "I'm drawing am;    blank" (octal 40 is the ASCII space charater). See WALL.t  B OFF THE TROLLEY (of dh@ tro'lee) adj.  Describes the behavior of aF    program which malfunctions but doesn't actually CRASH or get halted8    by the operating system. See GLITCH, BUG, DEEP SPACE.  B OFFLINE (of'lien) adv.  Not now or not here.  Example: "Let's take    this discussion offline."  C ONE BELL SYSTEM (IT WORKS) This was the output from the old Unix V6m?    "1" command.  The "1" command also contained a random numbert=    generator which gave it a one in ten chance of recursively     executing itself.  C ONE-LINER WARS (wuhn-lie'nr worz) n. Popular game among hackers who E    code in the language APL. The objective is to see who can code the B    most interesting and/or useful routine in one line of operatorsB    chosen from APL's exceedingly HAIRY primitive set. [This is notC    *quite* as silly as it sounds; I myself have coded one-line LIFEC?    programs and once uttered a one-liner that performed lexicaltC    analysis of its input string followed by a dictionary lookup for     good measure -- ESR])  F OOBLICK (oo'blik) n. A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarchD    and water. Enjoyed among hackers who make batches for playtime atC    parties for its amusing and extremely non-Newtonian behavior; iteF    pours and splatters, but resists rapid motion like a solid and will<    even crack when hit by a hammer. Often found near lasers.  D OPEN (oh'p@n) n. Abbreviation for "open (or left) parenthesis", usedF    when necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity.  To read aloud the LISPD    form (DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say: "Open def-fun foo,@    open eks close, open, plus ekx one, close close."  See CLOSE.  8 OPEN SWITCH (oh'p@n swich) [IBM] n. An unresolved issue.  D OPERATING SYSTEM (ah'per-ay-ting sis'tm) n. (Often abbreviated "OS")>    The foundation software of a machine, of course; that which=    schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a defaultsA    interface to the user between applications. The facilities theoD    operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert=    an extremely strong influence on programming style and thenD    technical culture that grows up around a machine. Hacker folklore7    has been shaped primarily by the UNIX, ITS, TOPS-10,eC    TOPS-20/TWENEX, VMS, CP/M, MS/DOS, and MULTICS operating systemsCF    (most critically by ITS and UNIX). Each of these has its own entry,
    which see.   E ORANGE BOOK, THE (oh'rnj buk, dh@) n. The U.S. Government's standardsaF    document (Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD standard?    5200.28-STD, December, 1985) characterizing secure computingcE    architectures, defining levels A1 (least secure) through C3. StockhC    UNIXes are roughly C2. See SILVER BOOK, WHITE BOOK, PURPLE BOOK.e  ? ORIENTAL FOOD (oh-ree-en'tl food) n. Hackers display an intenseN<    tropism towards Oriental cuisine, especially Chinese, andB    especially of the spicier varieties such as Szechuan and Hunan.E    This phenomenon (which has also been observed in subcultures whicha?    overlap heavily with hackerdom, most notably science-fiction.:    fandom) has never been satisfactorily explained, but isC    sufficiently intense that one can assume the target of a hackishAD    dinner expedition to be the best local Chinese place and be right@    at least 3 times out of 4. See also CHINESE RAVS, GREAT-WALL,    STIR-FRIED RANDOM.   9 ORTHOGONAL (or-tho'guh-nl) [from mathematics] n. Mutually A    independent; well-separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used tobC    describe sets of primitives or capabilities which, like a vectoraF    basis in geometry, span the entire `capability space' of the systemE    and are in some sense non-overlapping or mutually independent. ForgD    example, in architectures such as the MC68000 where all or nearlyE    all registers can be used interchangeably in any role with respectnE    to any instruction, the register set is said to be orthogonal. Or,MC    in logic, the set of operators `not' and `or' is orthogonal, butkE    the set `and', `or' and `not' is not (because any one of these canr@    be expressed in terms of the other two via De Morgan's Laws).  C OS (oh ess) 1. [Operating System] n. Acronym heavily used in email,s<    occasionally in speech. 2. obs. n. On ITS, an output spy.  C OS/2 (oh ess too) n. The anointed successor to MS-DOS for Intel-286sA    and 386-based micros; proof that IBM/Microsoft couldn't get itiE    right the second time, either. Cited here because mentioning it is'F    always good for a cheap laugh among hackers - the design was so badF    that three years after introduction you could still count the majorC    APPs shipping for it on the fingers of two hands. See VAPORWARE,r2    MONSTROSITY, CRETINOUS, SECOND-SYSTEM SYNDROME.  A OVERRUN SCREW (oh'v@r-ruhn scroo) [C programming] n. A variety ofnF    FANDANGO ON CORE produced by scribbling past the end of an array (CB    has no checks for this).  This is relatively benign and easy toC    spot if the array is static; if it is auto, the result may be to D    SMASH THE STACK. The term OVERRUN SCREW is used esp. of scribblesD    beyond the end of arrays allocated with malloc(3); this typicallyA    trashes the allocation header for the next block in the ARENA, B    producing massive lossage within malloc and (frequently) a coreC    dump on the next operation to use stdio or malloc(3) itself. See"B    also MEMORY LEAK, ALIASING SCREW, PRECEDENCE SCREW, FANDANGO ON    CORE.   			= P =  F PAGE IN (payj in) [MIT] v. To become aware of one's surroundings againB    after having paged out (see PAGE OUT).  Usually confined to theC    sarcastic comment, "So-and-so pages in. Film at 11." See FILM ATS    11.  D PAGE OUT (payj owt) [MIT] v. To become unaware of one's surroundingsE    temporarily, due to daydreaming or preoccupation.  "Can you repeatO2    that?  I paged out for a minute."  See PAGE IN.  C PANIC (pa'nik) [UNIX] v. An action taken by a process or the entireaC    operating system when an unrecoverable error is discovered.  The F    action usually consists of: (1) displaying localized information onC    the controlling terminal, (2) saving, or preparing for saving, ai;    memory image of the process or operating system, and (3)i3    terminating the process or rebooting the system.   B PARAM (p@-ram') n. Speeech-only shorthand for "parameter". Compare    ARG, VAR.  = PARITY ERRORS (per'@-tee er'@rz) pl.n. Those little lapses ofoE    attention or (in more severe cases) consciousness, usually broughtaE    on by having spent all night and most of the next day hacking.  "IpA    need to go home and crash; I'm starting to get a lot of parityf    errors."   A PARSE (pars) [from linguistic terminology] v. 1. To determine thevE    syntactic structure of a sentence or other utterance (close to theuE    standard English meaning).  Example: "That was the one I saw you.",=    "I can't parse that."  2. More generally, to understand oroE    comprehend.  "It's very simple; you just kretch the glims and thenu@    aos the zotz."  "I can't parse that."  3. Of fish, to have toC    remove the bones yourself (usually at a Chinese restaurant).  "I C    object to parsing fish" means "I don't want to get a whole fish, @    but a sliced one is okay."  A "parsed fish" has been deboned.@    There is some controversy over whether "unparsed" should mean"    "bony", or also mean "deboned".  C PATCH (pach) 1. n. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usuallyaC    as a quick-and-dirty remedy to an existing bug or misfeature.  Ao>    patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually beF    incorporated permanently into the program.  2. v. To insert a patch;    into a piece of code. 3. [in the UNIX world] n. a set ofaF    differences between two versions of code generated with diff(1) andF    intended to be mechanically applied using patch(1); often used as a?    way of distributing permanent C code upgrades and fixes overg
    USENET.  E PD (pee-dee) adj. Common abbreviation for "public domain", applied toSD    software distributed over USENET and from Internet archive sites.D    Much of this software is not in fact "public domain" in the legalC    sense but travels under various copyrights granting reproduction ?    and use rights to anyone who can SNARF a copy. See COPYLEFT.   D PDL (pid'l or pud'l) [acronym for Push Down List] n. 1. A LIFO queueD    (stack); more loosely, any priority queue; even more loosely, anyB    queue.  A person's pdl is the set of things he has to do in theC    future.  One speaks of the next project to be attacked as havingeF    risen to the top of the pdl.  "I'm afraid I've got real work to do,>    so this'll have to be pushed way down on my pdl." All theseB    usages are also frequently found with STACK (q.v) itself as the>    subject noun.  See PUSH and POP.  2. Dave Lebling (PDL@DM).  D PDP-10 [Programmable Digital Processor model 10] n. The machine thatE    made timesharing real. Looms large in hacker folklore due to earlysF    adoption in the mid-70s by many university computing facilities andA    research labs including the MIT AI lab, Stanford and CMU. Some =    aspects of the instruction set (most notably the bit-fieldm>    instructions) are still considered unsurpassed. The '10 wasF    eventually eclipsed by the PDP-11 and VAX machines and dropped fromF    DEC's line in the early '80s, and to have cut one's teeth on one isC    considered something of a badge of honorable old-timerhood amongn)    hackers. See TOPS-10, ITS, Appendix B.l  C PERCENT-S (per-sent' es) [From "%s", the formatting sequence in C'siF    printf() library function used to indicate that an arbitrary stringD    may be inserted] n. An unspecified person or object.  "I was just@    talking to some percent-s in administration." Compare RANDOM.  # PERF (perf) n. See CHAD (sense #1).w  < PESSIMAL (pes'i-ml) [Latin-based antonym for "optimal"] adj.2    Maximally bad.  "This is a pessimal situation."  = PESSIMIZING COMPILER (pes'i-miez-ing kuhm-pie'lr) [antonym of F    `optimizing compiler'] n. A compiler that produces object code that<    is worse than the straightforward or obvious translation.  C PHASE (fayz) 1. n. The phase of one's waking-sleeping schedule with C    respect to the standard 24-hour cycle.  This is a useful conceptr=    among people who often work at night according to no fixed D    schedule.  It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much asF    six hours/day on a regular basis.  "What's your phase?"  "I've beenD    getting in about 8 PM lately, but I'm going to work around to theD    day schedule by Friday."  A person who is roughly 12 hours out ofA    phase is sometimes said to be in "night mode".  (The term "dayNF    mode" is also used, but less frequently.)  2. CHANGE PHASE THE HARDA    WAY: To stay awake for a very long time in order to get into a F    different phase.  3. CHANGE PHASE THE EASY WAY: To stay asleep etc.  D PHASE OF THE MOON (fayz uhv dh@ moon) n. Used humorously as a randomE    parameter on which something is said to depend.  Sometimes implies D    unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seemsC    to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine.aC    "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode,n<    having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon."  D PIG, RUN LIKE A (pig, ruhn liek uh) adj. To run very slowly on given6    hardware, said of software. Distinct from HOG, q.v.  E PING (ping) [from TCP/IP terminology] n.,v. 1. Slang term for a small-B    network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a computer to check for theA    presence and aliveness of another one.  Occasionally used as alE    phone greeting. See ACK. 2.  To verify the presence of.  3. To gets@    the attention of.  From the Unix command by the same name (anE    acronym of "Packet INternet Groper) that sends an ICMP ECHO packeti    to another host.A  F PIPELINE (piep'lien) [UNIX, orig. by Doug McIlroy; now also used under@    MS-DOS and elsewhere] n. A chain of FILTER programs connectedF    "head-to-tail", that is so that the output of one becomes the inputD    of the next.  Under UNIX, user utilities can often be implementedC    or at least prototyped by a suitable collection of pipelines andsB    temp-file grinding encapsulated in a shell script; this is much?    less effort than writing C every time, and the capability ise3    considered one of UNIX's major WINNING features.h  B PLAYPEN (play'pen) [IBM] n. A room where programmers work. Compare    SALT MINES.  F PLUGH (ploogh) [from the ADVENT game] v. A `magic word' sometimes used=   as a metasyntactic variable in the style of FOO. See XYZZY.i  A PM (pee em) 1. [from "preventive maintenence"] v. to bring down an=    machine for inspection or test purposes. 2. n. Abbrev. fore3    "Presentation Manager", an ELEPHANTINE OS/2 GUI.p  E P.O.D. (pee-oh-dee) Acronym for `Piece Of Data' (as opposed to a code &    section). Usage: pedantic and rare.  C POINTER ARITHMETIC (poyn'tr @-rith'm-@-tik`) [C programmers] n. The.C    use of increment and decrement operations on address pointers toe6    traverse arrays or structure fields. See also BUMP.  B POLL (pohl) v.,n. 1. The action of checking the status of an inputC    line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular external E    event has been registered. 2. To ask.  "I'll poll everyone and seeP$    where they want to go for lunch."  ? POLYGON PUSHER (pol'@-gon pu'shr) n. A chip designer who spendssD    most of his/her time at the physical layout level (which requires-    drawing *lots* of multi-colored polygons).u  D POM (pee-oh-em) n. Phase of the moon (q.v.).  Usage: usually used in8    the phrase "POM dependent" which means FLAKEY (q.v.).  L POP (pop) [based on the stack operation that removes the top of a stack, andC    the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the stack]p@    dialect: POPJ (pop-jay), based on the PDP-10 procedure returnC    instruction.  v. To return from a digression.  By verb doubling,t>    "Popj, popj" means roughly, "Now let's see, where were we?"    See RTI.n  D PRECEDENCE SCREW (pre's@-dens scroo) [C programmers] n. Coding errorF    in an expression to to unexpected grouping of arithmetic or logical@    operators by the compiler. Used esp. of certain common codingF    errors in C due to the nonintuitively low precedence levels of &, |C    and ^. Can always be avoided by suitable use of parentheses. SeeoB    ALIASING SCREW, MEMORY LEAK, SMASH THE STACK, FANDANGO ON CORE,    OVERRUN SCREW.r  B PRIME TIME (priem tiem) [from TV programming] n. Normal high-usageE    hours on a timesharing system, the `day shift'. Avoidance of primen1    time is a major reason for NIGHT MODE hacking.d  B PRIORITY INTERRUPT (prie-or'i-tee in'ter-ruhpt) [from the hardwareF    term] n. Describes any stimulus compelling enough to yank one rightE    out of hack mode.  Classically used to describe being dragged away A    by an SO for immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundanehE    interruptions such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity.n  E PROPELLER HEAD (proh-pel'r hed) n. Used by hackers, this is syn. withIG    COMPUTER GEEK. Non-hackers sometimes use it to describe all techies.T  + PROTOCOL (proh'tuh-kol) n. See DO PROTOCOL.=  < PROWLER (prow'lr) [UNIX] n. A DEMON that is run periodicallyE    (typically once a week) to seek out and erase core files, truncatenF    administrative logfiles, nuke lost+found directories, and otherwiseD    clean up the cruft that tends to pile up in the corners of a file
    system.  B PSEUDOPRIME (soo'doh-priem) n. A backgammon prime (six consecutive+    occupied points) with one point missing.c  D PUNT (punt) [from the punch line of an old joke: "Drop back 15 yards?    and punt"] v. To give up, typically without any intention ofh    retrying.  C PURPLE BOOK, THE (per'pl buk) n. The System V Interface Definition.tF    The covers of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade=    of off-lavender. See WHITE BOOK, SILVER BOOK, ORANGE BOOK.   ? PUSH (push) [based on the stack operation that puts the currenteE    information on a stack, and the fact that procedure call addressesiB    are saved on the stack] dialect: PUSHJ (push-jay), based on theE    PDP-10 procedure call instruction.  v. To enter upon a digression,s,    to save the current discussion for later.   			= Q =  = QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS (kwahn'tm boh`goh-die-nam'iks) n. TheoryiB    promulgated by ESR (one of the authors) which characterizes theD    universe in terms of bogon sources (such as politicians, used-carE    salesmen, TV evangelists, and SUITs in general), bogon sinks (suchiE    as taxpayers and computers), and bogosity potential fields.  BogonxF    absorption, of course, causes human beings to behave mindlessly andC    machines to fail (and may cause them to emit secondary bogons ase?    well); however, the precise mechanics of the bogon-computronmB    interaction are not yet understood and remain to be elucidated.A    Quantum bogodynamics is most frequently invoked to explain the F    sharp increase in hardware and software failures in the presence ofD    suits; the latter emit bogons which the former absorb. See BOGON,    COMPUTRON, SUIT.   A QUES (kwess) 1. n. The question mark character ("?").  2. interj.a$    What?  Also QUES QUES?  See WALL.  E QUX (kwuhx) The fourth of the standard metasyntactic variables, after <    BAZ and before the QUU*X series. See FOO, BAR, BAZ, QUUX.  = QUUX (kwooks) [invented by Steele] Mythically, from the Latinp>    semi-deponent verb QUUXO, QUUXARE, QUUXANDUM IRI; noun formA    variously QUUX (plural QUUCES, Anglicized to QUUXES) and QUUXU ?    (genitive plural is QUUXUUM, four U's in seven letters).] 1..@    Originally, a meta-word like FOO and FOOBAR.  Invented by GuyD    Steele for precisely this purpose when he was young and naive andF    not yet interacting with the real computing community.  Many peopleE    invent such words; this one seems simply to have been lucky enough.F    to have spread a little.  2. interj. See FOO; however, denotes veryE    little disgust, and is uttered mostly for the sake of the sound ofuE    it.  3. n.  Refers to one of three people who went to Boston Latins     School and eventually to MIT:# 	THE GREAT QUUX:  Guy L. Steele Jr.b% 	THE LESSER QUUX:  David J. Littleboyo" 	THE MEDIOCRE QUUX:  Alan P. SwideD    (This taxonomy is said to be similarly applied to three FrankstonD    brothers at MIT.)  QUUX, without qualification, usually refers toC    The Great Quux, who is somewhat infamous for light verse and forXA    the "Crunchly" cartoons.  4. QUUXY: adj. Of or pertaining to a +    QUUX.  5. n. The Micro Quux (Sam Lewis).S   			= R =  > RANDOM (ran'dm) adj. 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematicalE    definition); weird.  "The system's been behaving pretty randomly."TE    2. Assorted; undistinguished.  "Who was at the conference?"  "JustDC    a bunch of random business types."  3.  Frivolous; unproductive; <    undirected (pejorative).  "He's just a random loser."  4.C    Incoherent or inelegant; not well organized.  "The program has aT>    random set of misfeatures."  "That's a random name for thatE    function."  "Well, all the names were chosen pretty randomly."  5. A    Gratuitously wrong, i.e., poorly done and for no good apparentmD    reason.  For example, a program that handles file name defaultingD    in a particularly useless way, or an assembler routine that couldB    easily have been coded using only three ac's, but randomly usesC    seven for assorted non-overlapping purposes, so that no one else @    can invoke it without first saving four extra ac's.  6. In noF    particular order, though deterministic.  "The I/O channels are in aD    pool, and when a file is opened one is chosen randomly."  n. 7. AD    random hacker; used particularly of high school students who soakE    up computer time and generally get in the way.  8. (occasional MITeD    usage) One who lives at Random Hall.  J. RANDOM is often prefixedF    to a noun to make a "name" out of it (by comparison to common namesA    such as "J. Fred Muggs").  The most common uses are "J. RandomgE    Loser" and "J. Random Nurd" ("Should J. Random Loser be allowed to D    gun down other people?"), but it can be used just as an elaborate;    version of RANDOM in any sense.  See also SOME RANDOM X.   A RANDOM NUMBERS (ran'd@m nuhm'brz) n. When one wishes to specify arF    large but random number of things, and the context is inappropriateD    for `N' (q.v.), certain numbers are preferred by hacker tradition>    (that is, easily recognized as placeholders). These include  G    17  Long described at MIT as "the least random number". Also see 23.3G    23  A sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 & 5).sG    42  The Answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.fF    69  From the sexual act. This one was favored in MIT's ITS culture.    666 The Number of the Beast.s  @    For further enlightenment, consult the _Principia_Discordia_,B    _The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_To_The_Galaxy_, any porn movie, and theC    Christian Bible's _Book_Of_Revelations_. See also DISCORDIANISM.e  B RANDOMNESS (ran'dm-nes) n. An unexplainable misfeature; gratuitous@    inelegance.  Also, a HACK or CROCK which depends on a complexE    combination of coincidences (or rather, the combination upon whichaA    the crock depends).  "This hack can output characters 40-57 byfD    putting the character in the accumulator field of an XCT and thenB    extracting 6 bits -- the low two bits of the XCT opcode are the$    right thing."  "What randomness!"  > RAPE (rayp) v. To (metaphorically) screw someone or something,B    violently.  Usage: often used in describing file-system damage.B    "So-and-so was running a program that did absolute disk I/O and)    ended up raping the master directory."e  @ RARE (reir) [UNIX] adj. CBREAK mode (character-by-character withB    interrupts enabled). Distinguished from `raw' and `cooked', but@    unlike them this term is strictly a creature of folklore, not%    found in the manuals. Usage: rare.d  C RASTER BURN (ras'tr bern) n. Eyestrain brought on by too many hourspE    of looking at low-res, poorly tuned or glare-ridden monitors, esp.i+    graphics monitors. See TERMINAL ILLNESS.t  D RAVE (rayv) [WPI] v. 1. To persist in discussing a specific subject.F    2. To speak authoritatively on a subject about which one knows veryB    little.  3. To complain to a person who is not in a position to@    correct the difficulty.  4. To purposely annoy another personD    verbally.  5. To evangelize.  See FLAME.  Also used to describe a@    less negative form of blather, such as friendly bullshitting.  @ RAVE ON! (rayv on) imp. Sarcastic invitation to continue a RAVE,F    often by someone who wishes the raver would get a clue but realizes    this is unlikely.  B READ-ONLY USER (reed'ohn-lee yoo'zr) n. Describes a LUSER who usesC    computers almost exclusively for reading USENET, bulletin boards <    and email, as opposed to writing code or purveying useful    information. See TWINK.  F REAL SOON NOW (reel soon now) [orig. from SF's fanzine community] adj.E    1. Supposed to be available (or fixed, or cheap, or whatever) realtF    soon now according to somebody, but the speaker is quite skeptical.F    2. When the gods/fates/other time commitments permit the speaker to%    get to it.  Often abbreviated RSN.r  D REAL TIME (reel tiem) adv. Doing something while people are watchingE    or waiting.  "I asked her how to find the caller's pc on the stacka3    and she came up with an algorithm in real time."e  C REAL USER (reel yoo'zr) n. 1. A commercial user.  One who is paying B    "real" money for his computer usage.  2. A non-hacker.  SomeoneF    using the system for an explicit purpose (research project, course,    etc.).  See USER.  = REAL WORLD, THE (reel werld, dh@) n. 1. In programming, thoseeE    institutions at which programming may be used in the same sentenceeE    as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc.  2. To programmers, the locationaF    of non-programmers and activities not related to programming.  3. AE    universe in which the standard dress is shirt and tie and in whichaF    a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5.  4. The location ofD    the status quo.  5. Anywhere outside a university.  "Poor fellow,E    he's left MIT and gone into the real world."  Used pejoratively byvE    those not in residence there.  In conversation, talking of someonee?    who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about apA    deceased person. See also FEAR AND LOATHING and UNINTERESTING.O  E REINCARNATION, CYCLE OF (ree-in-kar-nay'shn) n. Term used to refer toOD    a well-known effect whereby function in a computing system familyD    is migrated out to special purpose peripheral hardware for speed,F    then the peripheral evolves towards more computing power as it doesF    its job, then somebody notices that it's inefficient to support twoE    asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the functionuA    back into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again.sB    Several iterations of this cycle have been observed in graphicsB    processor design, and at least one or two in communications and    floating-point processors.g  = REGULAR EXPRESSIONS (reg'yoo-lr ek-spre-shns) [UNIX] The UNIX C    conventions for filename and regular-expression wildcarding havetF    become sufficiently pervasive than many hackers use some of them inD    written English, especially in email or news on technical topics.&    Those commonly encountered include:  , 	*	wildcard for any string (see UN*X, U*IX).7 	?	wildcard for any character (generally only read thist 		way in the middle of a word. 	[]	set-of-characters braces.o  G    Some examples: "He said his name was [KC]arl" (expresses ambiguity). H    "That got posted to talk.politics.*" (all the talk.politics subgroupsD    on USENET). Other examples are given under the entry for `X'. The:    * wildcard has a name of its own; it's a `Kleene star'.  C RELIGIOUS ISSUES (ree-lij'-@s is'yoos) n. Questions which seemingly.F    cannot be raised without touching off a FLAME WAR, such as "What isD    the best editor/language operating system/architecture". See also    THEOLOGY.  B RELIGIOUS WAR (ree-lij'@s wor)[from USENET, but may predate it] n.$    FLAME WARS over RELIGIOUS ISSUES.  E REPLICATOR (rep'l:-kay-t:r) any construct that acts to produce copiesbD    of itself; this could be a living organism, an idea (see MEME), a4    program (see WORM, WABBIT and VIRUS), or a robot.  ? RETROCOMPUTING (ret'-roh-k@m-pyoo'ting) n. Refers to emulationsk>    of way-behind-the state-of-the-art hardware or software, or>    implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if such@    implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodiesA    of more `serious' designs. Perhaps the most widely distributed A    retrocomputing utility was the pnch(6) program on V7 and otheroA    early UNIX versions, which would accept up to 80 characters oflC    text argument and display the corresponding pattern in HollerithsA    card code. Other well-known retrocomputing hacks have includedtA    the language INTERCAL, a jcl-emulating shell for UNIX, and the )    card-punch-emulating editor named 029.o  B RFC (ahr ef see) n. Request For Comment. One of a long-establishedF    series of numbered Internet standards widely followed by commercialD    and PD software in the Internet and UNIX communities. Perhaps the=    single most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internetn?    mail-format standard). The RFCs are unusual in that they areeB    floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative andF    reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated'    through an institution such as ANSI.i  = RICE BOX (ries boks) [from ham radio slang] n. Any Asian-madeP@    commodity computer, esp. an 8086, 80286, 80386 or 80486-based@    machine built to IBM PC-compatible ISA or EISA-bus standards.  C RIGHT THING, THE (riet thing, dh@) n. That which is "obviously" the.B    correct or appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc.  Use of thisB    term often implies that in fact reasonable people may disagree.C    "Never let your conscience keep you from doing the right thing!"d?    "What's the right thing for LISP to do when it reads '(.)'?"n#    Antonym: THE WRONG THING (q.v.).   B ROACH (rohch) [Bell Labs] v. To destroy, esp. of a data structure.0    Hardware gets TOASTed, software gets roached.  B ROBUST (roh'buhst) adj. Said of a system which has demonstrated anB    ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptionA    conditions in a given environment. One step below BULLETPROOF.e!    Compare SMART, oppose BRITTLE.t  E ROGUE (rohg) [UNIX] n. Graphic Dungeons-And-Dragons-like game writtenaD    under BSD UNIX and subsequently ported to other UNIX systems. TheE    original BSD curses(3) screen-handling package was hacked togetherOE    by Ken Arnold to support ROGUE, and has since become one of UNIX'sbC    most important and heavily used application libraries. See HACK.v  C ROOM-TEMPERATURE IQ (room tem'prat-yoor ie-kyoo) [IBM] 80 or below.(F    Used in describing expected the intelligence range of the LUSER. As9    in "Well, but how's this interface gonna play with thet5    room-temperature IQ crowd?" See DROOL-PROOF PAPER.n  B RTFM (ahr-tee-ef-em) [UNIX] Abbrev. for "Read The F**king Manual".@    Used by GURUs to brush off questions they consider trivial or)    annoying. Compare DON'T DO THAT, THEN.p  E RTI (ahr-tee-ie) interj. The mnemonic for the `return from interrupt' F    instruction on Intel microprocessors. Equivalent to "Now, where wasA    I?" or used to end a conversational digression. See POP, POPJ.u  ; RUDE (rood) [WPI] adj. 1. (of a program) Badly written.  2.tC    Functionally poor, e.g. a program which is very difficult to usei@    because of gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions.  See	    CUSPY.u   			= S =  E SACRED (say'kr@d) adj. Reserved for the exclusive use of something (a F    metaphorical extension of the standard meaning).  "Accumulator 7 isC    sacred to the UUO handler."  Often means that anyone may look atdA    the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it iss
    sacred to.o  > SADISTICS (s@'dis'tiks) n. University slang for statistics and-    probability theory, often used by hackers.   B SAGA (saga) [WPI] n. A cuspy but bogus raving story dealing with N    random broken people.  B SAIL (sayl) n. Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Lab. AnC    important site in the early development of LISP (with the MIT AICE    LAB, CMU and the UNIX community) one of the major founts of hacker C    culture traditions. The SAIL machines were shut down in late MayCA    1990, scant weeks after the MIT AI lab's ITS cluster went downR    for the last time.e  C SALT MINES (sahlt miens) n. Dense quarters housing large numbers ofhD    programmers working long hours on grungy projects, with some hopeC    of seeing the end of the tunnel in x number of years.  Noted for .    their absence of sunshine. Compare PLAYPEN.  @ SANDBENDER (sand'ben-dr) [IBM] n. A person involved with siliconD    lithography and the physical design of chips. Compare IRONMONGER,    POLYGON PUSHER.  C SCIENCE-FICTION FANDOM (si'@ns fik'shn fan'dm) n. Another voluntary D    subculture having a very heavy overlap with hackerdom; almost all@    hackers read SF and/or fantasy fiction avidly, and many go to>    "cons" (SF conventions) or are involved in fandom-connectedD    activities like the Society for Creative Anachronism. Some hackerA    slang originated in SF fandom; see DEFENESTRATION, GREAT-WALL,tD    CYBERPUNK, H INFIX, HA HA ONLY SERIOUS, IMHO, MUNDANE, NEEP-NEEP,B    REAL SOON NOW, SNOG. Additionally, the jargon terms CYBERSPACE,=    GO FLATLINE, ICE, VIRUS, and WORM originated in SF itself.   F SCRATCH (skrach) [from "scratchpad"] adj. A device or recording medium?    attached to a machine for testing purposes; one which can be D    SCRIBBLED on without loss. Usually in the combining forms SCRATCHB    MEMORY, SCRATCH DISK, SCRATCH TAPE, SCRATCH VOLUME. See SCRATCH
    MONKEY.  = SCRATCH MONKEY (skrach muhn'kee) n. As in, "Before testing ori?    reconfiguring, always mount a". Used in memory of Mabel, the C    Swimming Wonder Monkey who expired when a computer vendor PM'd atC    machine which was regulating the gas mixture that the monkey wastB    breathing at the time. See Appendix A. A mantram used to advise>    caution when dealing with irreplacable data or devices. See    SCRATCH.   C SCREW (scroo) [MIT] n. A LOSE, usually in software. Especially used >    for user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature.  @ SCREWAGE (scroo'@j) n. Like LOSSAGE (q.v.) but connotes that theA    failure is do to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simples    inadequacy or mere bug.  ? SCROG (skrog) [Bell Labs] v. To damage, trash or corrupt a data @    structure. as in "the cblock got scrogged".  Also reported asA    SKROG, and ascribed to "The Wizard of Id" comix. Equivalent toe    SCRIBBLE or MANGLE, q.v.   B SCROZZLE (skro'zl) v. Verb used when a self-modifying code segmentD    runs incorrectly and corrupts the running program, or vital data..    "The damn compiler scrozzled itself again!"  @ SCRIBBLE (skri'bl) n. To modify a data structure in a random andF    unintentionally destructive way. "Bletch! Somebody's disk-compactorC    program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node table." "It wasCE    working fine until one of the allocation routines scribbled on low)C    core."  Synonymous with TRASH; compare MUNG, which conveys a bith?    more intention, and MANGLE, which is more violent and final.a  C SEARCH-AND-DESTROY MODE (serch-@nd-d@s-troy' mohd) n. Hackerism foriE    the search-and-replace facility in an editor, so called because anU?    incautiously chosen match pattern can cause INFINITE damage.   C SECOND-SYSTEM SYNDROME (sek'@nd sis'tm sin'drohm) n. When designingMF    the successor to a relatively small, elegant and successful system,?    there is a tendency to become grandiose in one's success ande@    perpetrate an ELEPHANTINE feature-laden monstrosity. The termA    `second-system syndrome' was first used for this affliction inoA    describing how the success of CTSS led to the debacle that wast    MULTICS.j  B SEGGIE (seg'ee) [UNIX] n. Reported from Britain as a shorthand forF    `segment violation', an attempted access to a protected memory area$    usually resulting in a CORE DUMP.  7 SELF-REFERENCE (self ref'@-rens) n. See SELF-REFERENCE.e  ) SELVAGE (selv'@j) n. See CHAD (sense #1).o  @ SEMI (se'mee) 1. n. Abbreviation for "semicolon", when speaking.D    "Commands to GRIND are prefixed by semi-semi-star" means that theD    prefix is ";;*", not 1/4 of a star.  2. Prefix with words such asB    "immediately", as a qualifier.  "When is the system coming up?"    "Semi-immediately."  D SERVER (ser'vr) n. A kind of DAEMON which performs a service for theB    requester, which often runs on a computer other than the one onE    which the server runs. A particularly common term on the Internet,TD    which is rife with "name servers" "domain servers" "news servers"!    "finger servers" and the like.y  E SEX (seks) [Sun User's Group & elsewhere] n. 1.  Software EXchange. AjF    technique invented by the blue-green algae hundereds of millions ofF    years ago to speed up their evolution, which had been terribly slowB    up until then. Today, SEX parties are popular among hackers andF    others. 2. The rather Freudian mnemonic often used for Sign Extend,5    a machine instruction found in many architectures.   E SHAREWARE (sheir'weir) n. FREEWARE for which the author requests someeD    payment, usually in the accompanying documentation files or in anD    announcement made by the software itself. Such payment may or may>    not buy additional support or functionality. See GUILTWARE,    CRIPPLEWARE..  = SHELFWARE (shelf'weir) n. Software purchased on a whim (by annE    individual user) or in accordance with policy (by a corporation or.@    government) but not actually required for any particular use.-    Therefore, it often ends up on some shelf.l  B SHELL (shel) [from UNIX, now used elsewhere] n. 1. On an operatingF    system with a well-defined KERNEL (q.v.), the SHELL is the loadableE    command interpreter program used to pass commands to the kernel. AhD    single kernel may support several shells with different interfaceC    styles.  2. More generally, any interface program which mediatestE    access to a special resource or SERVER for convenience, efficiency.F    or security reasons; for this meaning, the usage is usually A SHELL    AROUND whatever.   E SHIFT LEFT (RIGHT) LOGICAL (shift left (riet) lah'ji-kl) [from any ofeC    various machines' instruction sets] 1. v. To move oneself to thenD    left (right).  To move out of the way.  2. imper. Get out of thatC    (my) seat!  Usage: often used without the "logical", or as "left3B    shift" instead of "shift left".  Sometimes heard as LSH (lish),#    from the PDP-10 instruction set.t  C SHRIEK (shreek) See EXCL.  Occasional CMU usage, also in common use 7    among mathematicians, especially category theorists.m  E SIG (sig) or SIG BLOCK (sig blahk) [UNIX; often written ".sig" there]a>    n. Short for "signature", used specifically to refer to theD    electronic signature block which most UNIX mail- and news-postingC    software will allow you to automatically append to outgoing mailaC    and news. The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, E    including an ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings; but manynE    consider large sigs a waste of bandwidth, and it has been observed4E    that the size of one's sig block is usually inversely proportionaln;    to one's longevity and level of prestige on THE NETWORK.p  A SILICON (sil'i-kon) n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-basedT=    computer systems (compare IRON). Contrasted with software.U  F SILLY WALK (si'lee wahk) [from Monty Python] v. a ridiculous procedureB    required to accomplish a task. Like GROVEL, but more RANDOM andF    humorous. "I had to silly-walk through half the /usr directories to    find the maps file."r  C SILO (sie'loh) n. The FIFO input-character buffer in an RS-232 linehD    card. So called from DEC terminology used on DH and DZ line cards    for the VAX and PDP-11.  : SILVER BOOK, THE (sil'vr buk) n. Jensen & Wirth's infamousD    _Pascal_User_Manual_ and_Report_, so called because of the silverD    cover of the widely-distributed Springer-Verlag second edition of2    1978. See WHITE BOOK, PURPLE BOOK, ORANGE BOOK.  D 16-INCH ROTARY DEBUGGER (piz'uh) [Commodore] n.  Essential equipmentD    for those late night or early morning debugging sessions.  MainlyF    used as sustenance for the hacker.  Comes in many decorator colours+    such as Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage.   A SLEEP (sleep) [from the UNIX sleep(3)] On a timesharing system, ayC    process which relinquishes its claim on the scheduler until sometF    given event occurs or a specified time delay elapses is said to `go
    to sleep'.   D SLOP (slop) n. 1. A one-sided fudge factor (q.v.).  Often introducedE    to avoid the possibility of a fencepost error (q.v.).  2. (used byu@    compiler freaks) The ratio of code generated by a compiler toC    hand-compiled code, minus 1; i.e., the space (or maybe time) youw*    lose because you didn't do it yourself.  @ SLOPSUCKER (slop'suhkr) n. a lowest-priority task that must wait=    around until everything else has "had its fill" of machine C    resources.  Only when the machine would otherwise be idle is thehF    task allowed to "suck up the slop." Also called a HUNGRY PUPPY. OneF    common variety of slopsucker hunts for large prime numbers. Compare    BACKGROUND.  B SLUGGY (sluh'gee) adj. Hackish variant of `sluggish'. Used only of?    people, esp.  someone just waking up after a long GRONK-OUT.l  D SLURP (slerp) v. To read a large data file entirely into core beforeE    working on it.  "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and doess    an FFT.",  E SMART (smart) adj. Said of a program that does the RIGHT THING (q.v.) >    in a wide variety of complicated circumstances.  There is a<    difference between calling a program smart and calling itA    intelligent; in particular, there do not exist any intelligent C    programs (yet).  Compare ROBUST (smart programs can be BRITTLE).e  = SMASH THE STACK (smash dh@ stak) [C programming] n. On many CkC    implementations it is possible to corrupt the execution stack byuD    writing past the end of an array declared auto in a routine. CodeD    that does this is said to `smash the stack', and can cause returnF    from the routine to jump to a random text address. This can produceC    some of the most insidious data-dependent bugs known to mankind.n?    Variants include `trash the stack', `SCRIBBLE ON the stack',,E    `MANGLE the stack'; `*MUNG the stack' is not used as this is neverwD    done intentionally.  See ALIASING SCREW, FANDANGO ON CORE, MEMORY)    LEAK, PRECEDENCE SCREW, OVERRUN SCREW.   " SMILEY (smie'lee) n. See EMOTICON.  F SMOKE TEST (smohk test) n. 1. A rudimentary form of testing applied toD    electronic equipment following repair or reconfiguration in whichE    AC power is applied and during which the tester checks for sparks,,?    smoke, or other dramatic signs of fundamental failure. 2. ByfE    extension, the first run of a piece of software after construction )    or a critical change. See MAGIC SMOKE.f  C SMOKING CLOVER (smoh'king kloh'vr) n. A DISPLAY HACK originally duehF    to Bill Gosper.  Many convergent lines are drawn on a color monitorF    in AOS mode (so that every pixel struck has its color incremented).E    The color map is then rotated.  The lines all have one endpoint intE    the middle of the screen; the other endpoints are spaced one pixel C    apart around the perimeter of a large square.  This results in arE    striking, rainbow-hued, shimmering four-leaf clover.  Gosper jokedt:    about keeping it hidden from the FDA lest it be banned.  C SMOP (smop) [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] n. A piece ofaC    code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantlyeB    greater than its complexity.  Usage: used to refer to a programA    that could obviously be written, but is not worth the trouble.   D SNAIL-MAIL (snayl-mayl) n. Paper mail, as opposed to electronic. See	    EMAIL.u  B SNARF (snarf) v. 1. To grab, esp. a large document or file for theF    purpose of using it either with or without the author's permission.A    See BLT.  Variant: SNARF (IT) DOWN.  (At MIT on ITS, DDT has a B    command called :SNARF which grabs a job from another (inferior)C    DDT.) 2. [in the UNIX community] to fetch a file or set of files,%    across a network.  See also BLAST.R  C SNARF & BARF (snarf-n-barf) n. The act of grabbing a region of textoE    using a WIMP (q.v.) environment (Window, Icon, Mouse, Pointer) andeE    then "stuffing" the contents of that region into another region or ;    into the same region, to avoid re-typing a command line.s  E SNEAKERNET (snee'ker-net) n. Term used (generally with ironic intent)rF    for transfer of electronic information by physically carrying tape,B    disks, or some other media from one machine to another.  "NeverF    underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with magtape,     or a 747 filled with CD-ROMs"  $ SNIFF (snif) v.,n. Synonym for POLL.  E SNOG (snog) [from old-time science-fiction fandom] v.i. Equivalent ton?    mainstream "make out" describing sexual activity, especiallyOC    exploratory. Most often encountered as participle SNOGGING. "Oh,d#    they're off snogging somewhere."   A S.O. (ess-oh) n. Acronym for Significant Other, almost invariably F    written abbreviated and pronounced "ess-oh" by hackers. In fact theC    form without periods "SO" is most common. Used to refer to one'saC    primary relationship, esp. a live-in to whom one is not married.r    See MOTAS, MOTOS, MOTSS.m  C SOFTWARE ROT (soft'weir raht) n. Hypothetical disease the existence(F    of which has been deduced from the observation that unused programsB    or features will stop working after sufficient time has passed,D    even if "nothing has changed".  Also known as BIT DECAY, BIT ROT.@    Occasionally this turns out to be a real problem due to media    failure.   B SOFTWARILY (soft-weir'i-lee) adv. In a way pertaining to software.F    "The system is softwarily unreliable."  The adjective "softwary" is    NOT used.  See HARDWARILY.   @ SOME RANDOM X (suhm randm eks) adj. Used to indicate a member of9    class X, with the implication that the particular X isaC    interchangeable with most other Xs in whatever context was beingdA    discussed. "I think some random cracker tripped over the guestm    timeout last night"  D SORCEROR'S APPRENTICE MODE (sor'ser'ers @-pren'tis mohd) n. A bug in?    a protocol where, under some circumstances, the receipt of aeB    message causes more than one message to be sent, each of which,C    when received, triggers the same bug. Used esp. of such behaviorsF    caused by BOUNCE MESSAGE loops in EMAIL software. Compare BROADCAST	    STORM.n  = SPACEWAR (spays'wohr) n. A space-combat simulation game first,C    implemented on the PDP-1 at MIT in 1960-61. SPACEWAR aficionadossF    formed the core of the early hacker culture at MIT. Ten years laterA    a descendent of the game motivated Ken Thompson to invent UNIXdF    (q.v.). Ten years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialized as one of@    the first video games; descendants are still feeping in video    arcades everywhere.  E SPAGHETTI CODE (sp@-get'ee kohd) n. Describes code with a complex and F    tangled control structure, esp. one using many GOTOs, exceptions or9    other `unstructured' branching constructs. Pejorative.e  F SPAGHETTI INHERITANCE (sp@-get'ee in-her'i-t@ns) n. [Encountered amongC    users of object-oriented languages that use inheritance, such asvE    Smalltalk] A convoluted class-subclass graph, often resulting from F    carelessly deriving subclasses from other classes just for the sake>    of reusing their code.  Coined in a (successful) attempt to>    discourage such practice, through guilt by association with    SPAGHETTI CODE.  D SPIFFY (spi'fee) adj. 1. Said of programs having a pretty, clever orE    exceptionally well-designed interface. "Have you seen the spiffy XlF    version of EMPIRE yet?" 2. Said sarcastically of programs which areB    perceived to have little more than a flashy interface going forD    them. Which meaning should be drawn depends delicately on tone of    voice and context.c  F SPIN (spin) v. Equivalent to BUZZ (q.v.). More common among C and UNIX    programmers.k  C SPLAT (splat) n. 1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others)eB    for the ASCII star ("*") character.  2. [MIT] Name used by someB    people for the ASCII pound-sign ("#") character.  3. [Stanford]?    Name used by some people for the Stanford/ITS extended ASCIItB    circle-x character.  (This character is also called "circle-x",D    "blobby", and "frob", among other names.)  4. [Stanford] Name for>    the semi-mythical extended ASCII circle-plus character.  5.E    Canonical name for an output routine that outputs whatever the thedF    local interpretation of splat is.  Usage: nobody really agrees what0    character "splat" is, but the term is common.  ? SPOOGE (spooj) 1. n. inexplicable or arcane code, or random andpF    probably incorrect output from a computer program 2. v. to generate%    code or output as in definition 1.d  @ STACK (stak) n. See PDL. The STACK usage is probably more common    outside universities.  D STATE (stayt) n. Condition, situation.  "What's the state of NEWIO?"B    "It's winning away."  "What's your state?"  "I'm about to gronkB    out."  As a special case, "What's the state of the world?" (or,B    more silly, "State-of-world-P?") means "What's new?" or "What's
    going on?",  < STIR-FRIED RANDOM (ster-fried ran'dm) alt. STIR-FRIED MUMBLEC    (ster-fried mum'bl) n. Term used for frequent best dish of thoseCA    hackers who can cook. Conists of random fresh veggies and meatr@    wokked with random spices. Tasty and economical.  See RANDOM,+    GREAT-WALL, CHINESE RAVS, ORIENTAL FOOD.n  < STOMP ON (stomp on) v.  To inadvertently overwrite somethingB    important, usually automatically.  Example: "All the work I did?    this weekend got stomped on last night by the nightly-serveri:    script." Compare SCRIBBLE, MANGLE, TRASH, SCROG, ROACH.  @ STOPPAGE (sto'p@j) n. Extreme lossage (see LOSSAGE) resulting in:    something (usually vital) becoming completely unusable.  B STUNNING (stuhn'ning) adj. Mind-bogglingly stupid. Usually used in@    sarcasm. "You want to code *what* in ADA? That's...a stunning(    idea!" See also NON-OPTIMAL SOLUTION.  E SUBSHELL (suhb'shel) [UNIX, MS-DOS] n. An OS command interpreter (seey@    SHELL) spawned from within a program, such that exit from theC    command interpreter returns one to the parent program in a statet6    that allows it to continue execution. Oppose CHAIN.  B SUIT (soot) n. 1. Ugly and uncomfortable `business clothing' oftenE    worn by non-hackers. Invariably worn with a `tie', a strangulationcD    device which partially cuts off the blood supply to the brain. ItA    is thought that this explains much about the behavior of suit-CF    wearers. 2. A person who habitually wears suits, as distinct from a9    techie or hacker. See LOSER, BURBLE and BRAIN-DAMAGED.t  A SUPERPROGRAMMER (soo`per-pro'gra-mr) n. See WIZARD, HACKER, GURU.bD    Usage: rare.  (Becoming more common among IBM and Yourdon types.)  > SUZIE COBOL (soo'zee koh'bol) 1. [IBM, prob. fr. Frank Zappa'sA    "little Suzy Creamcheese"] n. A coder straight out of trainingfA    school who knows everything except the benefits of comments in.F    plain English.  Also (fashionable among personkind wishing to avoidF    accusations of sexism) `Sammy Cobol' 2. [generalization proposed byF    ESR] Meta-name for any CODE GRINDER, analogous to J. RANDOM HACKER.  D SWAB (swob) [From the PDP-11 "byte swap" instruction] 1. v. to solveE    the NUXI PROBLEM by swapping bytes in a file. 2. Also, the programO?    in V7 UNIX used to perform this action. See also BIG-ENDIAN,r    LITTLE-ENDIAN, BYTESEXUAL.   A SWAPPED (swopt) adj. From the use of secondary storage devices to D    implement virtual memory in computer systems.  Something which is@    SWAPPED IN is available for immediate use in main memory, andC    otherwise is SWAPPED OUT.  Often used metaphorically to refer tobE    people's memories ("I read TECO ORDER every few months to keep the E    information swapped in.") or to their own availability ("I'll swap ?    you in as soon as I finish looking at this other problem.").     Compare PAGE IN, PAGE OUT.n  D SWIZZLE (swi'zl) v. To convert external names or references within aA    data structure into direct pointers when the data structure is.F    brought into main memory from external storage; also called POINTERE    SWIZZLING; the converse operation is sometimes termed UNSWIZZLING.   F SYNC (sink) [from UNIX] n.,v. 1. To force all pending I/O to the disk.A    2. More generally, to force a number of competing processes orsF    agents to a state that would be `safe' if the system were to crash;"    thus, to checkpoint. See FLUSH.  D SYNTACTIC SUGAR (sin-tak'tik shu'gr) n. Features added to a languageC    or formalism to make it `sweeter' for humans, that do not affect B    the expressiveness of the formalism (compare CHROME). Used esp.B    when there is an obvious and trivial translation of the `sugar'A    feature into other constructs already present in the notation. D    Example: the \n, \t, \r, and \b escapes in C strings, which could!    be expressed as octal escapes.r  F SYSTEM (sis'tem) n. 1. The supervisor program on the computer.  2. Any@    large-scale program.  3. Any method or algorithm.  4. The wayB    things are usually done.  Usage: a fairly ambiguous word.  "YouC    can't beat the system."  SYSTEM HACKER: one who hacks the systemnE    (in sense 1 only; for sense 2 one mentions the particular program:t    e.g., LISP HACKER)o   			= T =  B T (tee) 1. [from LISP terminology for "true"] Yes.  Usage: used in=    reply to a question, particularly one asked using the "-P"wF    convention).  See NIL.  2. See TIME T. 3. In transaction-processing7    circles, an abbreviation for the noun "transaction".p  D TALK MODE n. The state a terminal is in when linked to another via aC    bidirectional character pipe to support on-line dialogue betweenLC    two or more users.  Talk mode has a special set of jargon words,s2    used to save typing, which are not used orally:   	BCNU	Be seeing you. 	BTW	By the way...< 	BYE?	Are you ready to unlink?  (This is the standard way to5 		end a com mode conversation; the other person typese6 		BYE to confirm, or else continues the conversation.) 	CUL	See you later.l< 	FOO?	A greeting, also meaning R U THERE?  Often used in the4 		case of unexpected links, meaning also "Sorry if I/ 		butted in" (linker) or "What's up?" (linkee).e 	FYI	For your information...5 	GA	Go ahead (used when two people have tried to type(1 		simultaneously; this cedes the right to type to 
 		the other). 9 	HELLOP	A greeting, also meaning R U THERE?  (An instancei 		of the "-P" convention.)% 	NIL	No (see the main entry for NIL).X 	OBTW	Oh, by the way..., 	R U THERE?	Are you there?. 	SEC	Wait a second (sometimes written SEC...)." 	T	Yes (see the main entry for T). 	TNX	Thanks.' 	TNX 1.0E6	Thanks a million (humorous).o 	WTH	What the hell< 	<double CRLF>  When the typing party has finished, he types4 		two CRLFs to signal that he is done; this leaves a1 		blank line between individual "speeches" in thea/ 		conversation, making it easier to re-read thee 		preceding text. = 	<name>:	When three or more terminals are linked, each speechb8 		is preceded by the typist's login name and a colon (or6 		a hyphen) to indicate who is typing.  The login name3 		often is shortened to a unique prefix (possibly ao1 		single letter) during a very long conversation.I  E    Most of the above "sub-jargon" is used at both Stanford and MIT. AuE    few other abbrevs have been reported from commercial networks suchiC    as GEnie and Compuserve where on-line `live' chat including more A    than two people is common and usually involves a more `social'.    context, notably   	 	<g>	grint 	BRB	be right back 	HHOJ	ha ha only joking. 	HHOS	HA HA ONLY SERIOUS 	LOL	laughing out load 	ROTF	rolling on the floor 	AFK	away from keyboard 
 	b4	before 	CU l8tr	see you later 	MORF	Male or Female?d 	TTFN	ta-ta for nowO 	OIC	Oh, I see 	rehi	hello againt  E    These are not used at universities; conversely, most of the peoplehE    who know these are unfamiliar with FOO?, BCNU, HELLOP, NIL, and T.t  E TANKED (tankt) adj. Same as DOWN, used primarily by UNIX hackers. SeeAF    also HOSED. Popularized as a synonym for "drunk" by Steve Dallas in*    the late lamented "Bloom County" comix.  B TASTE (tayst) n. [primarily MIT-DMS] The quality in programs which@    tends to be inversely proportional to the number of features,@    hacks, and kluges programmed into it.  Also, TASTY, TASTEFUL,D    TASTEFULNESS.  "This feature comes in N tasty flavors."  AlthoughD    TASTEFUL and FLAVORFUL are essentially synonyms, TASTE and FLAVOR    are not.   G TCB (tee see bee) [IBM] Trouble Came Back. Intermittent or difficult-to D    reproduce problem which has failed to respond to neglect. Compare
    HEISENBUG.a  E TELNET (telnet) v. To communicate with another ARPAnet host using themD    TELNET program.  TOPS-10 people use the word IMPCOM since that is?    the program name for them.  Sometimes abbreviated to TN.  "Iy5    usually TN over to SAIL just to read the AP News."a  B TENSE (tens) adj. Of programs, very clever and efficient.  A tenseE    piece of code often got that way because it was highly bummed, butsF    sometimes it was just based on a great idea.  A comment in a cleverC    display routine by Mike Kazar: "This routine is so tense it will.E    bring tears to your eyes.  Much thanks to Craig Everhart and JamesjF    Gosling for inspiring this hack attack."  A tense programmer is one    who produces tense code.r  @ TERAFLOP CLUB (ter'a-flop kluhb) n. Mythical group of people whoC    consume outragous amounts of computer time in order to produce aa@    few simple pictures of glass balls with intricate ray tracingA    techniques.  Cal Tech professor James Kajiya is said to be thea    founding member.t  ? TERMINAK (ter'mi-nak) [Caltech, ca. 1979] n. Any malfunctioning A    computer terminal. A common failure mode of Lear-Siegler ADM3a)@    terminals caused the "L" key to produce the "K" code instead;C    complaints about this tended to look like "Terminak #3 has a badb    keyboard.  Pkease fix."  @ TERMINAL ILLNESS (ter'mi-nl il'nes) n. 1. Syn. with RASTER BURN.@    2. The `burn-in' condition your CRT tends to get if you don't    have a screen saver.t  E TERPRI (ter'pree) [from the LISP 1.5 (and later, MacLISP) function tob:    start a new line of output] v. To output a CRLF (q.v.).  F THANKS IN ADVANCE [USENET] Conventional net.politeness ending a posted;    request for information or assistance. Sometimes writtenI+    "advTHANKSance". See "NET.", NETIQUETTE.P  D THEOLOGY (thee-o'l@-gee) n. 1. Ironically used to refer to RELIGIOUSF    ISSUES.  2. Technical fine points of an abstruse nature, esp. thoseA    where the resolution is of theoretical interest but relativelyiB    MARGINAL with respect to actual use of a design or system. UsedA    esp. around software issues with a heavy AI or language design.C    component.  Example: the deep- vs. shallow-binding debate in theu&    design of dynamically-scoped LISPS.  D THEORY (theer'ee) n. Used in the general sense of idea, plan, story,B    or set of rules.  "What's the theory on fixing this TECO loss?"B    "What's the theory on dinner tonight?"  ("Chinatown, I guess.")C    "What's the current theory on letting lusers on during the day?"hD    "The theory behind this change is to fix the following well-known    screw..."  F THINKO (thin'ko) [by analogy with `typo'] n. A bubble in the stream of;    consciousness; a momentary, correctable glitch in mental E    processing, especially one involving recall of information learnede    by rote. Compare MOUSO.  E THRASH (thrash) v. To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing E    anything useful.  Swapping systems which are overloaded waste mosti?    of their time moving pages into and out of core (rather thaneD    performing useful computation), and are therefore said to thrash.  E TICK (tick) n. 1. Interval of time; basic clock time on the computer..F    Typically 1/60 second.  See JIFFY.  2. In simulations, the discreteB    unit of time that passes "between" iterations of the simulationD    mechanism.  In AI applications, this amount of time is often leftD    unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is that causedC    things happen after their causes.  This sort of AI simulation is.A    often pejoratively referred to as "tick-tick-tick" simulation,bA    especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long, -    independent chains of causes is handwaved.t  B TIME T (tiem tee) n. 1. An unspecified but usually well-understoodF    time, often used in conjunction with a later time T+1.  "We'll meetD    on campus at time T or at Louie's at time T+1."  2. SINCE (OR AT)@    TIME T EQUALS MINUS INFINITY: A long time ago; for as long asA    anyone can remember; at the time that some particular frob wast    first designed.  E TIP OF THE ICE-CUBE (tip uhv dh@ ies-kyoob) [IBM] n. The visible partFB    of something small and insignificant. Used as an ironic commentC    in situations where "tip of the iceberg" might be appropriate ifr(    the subject were actually nontrivial.  F TIRED IRON (tierd iern) [IBM] n. Hardware that is perfectly functionalD    but enough behind the state of the art to have been superseded byD    new products, presumably with enough improvement in bang-per-buckA    that the old stuff is starting to look a bit like a DINOSAUR. c  D TLA (tee el ay) [Three-Letter-Acronym] n. 1. Self-describing acronymE    for a species with which computing terminology is infested. 2. AnyRB    confusing acronym at all.  Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU,E    MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, TLA, NNTP.  People who like this looser usageeC    argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as not all fourf"    letter words have four letters.  C TOAST (tohst) 1. n. any completely inoperable system, esp. one thatbF    has just crashed;"I think BUACCA is toast." 2. v. to cause a systemE    to crash accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual -    rebooting; "Rick just toasted harp again."   D TOASTER (tohs'tr) n. 1. The archetypal really stupid application forC    an embedded microprocessor controller esp. `toaster oven'; often >    used in comments which imply that a scheme is inappropriateE    technology. "DWIM for an assembler?  That'd be as silly as runningmC    UNIX on your toaster!" 2.  A very very dumb computer. "You could-F    run this program on any dumb toaster". See BITTY BOX, TOASTER, TOY.  D TOOL (tool) 1. n. A program primarily used to create other programs,D    such as a compiler or editor or cross-referencing program. OpposeA    APP, OPERATING SYSTEM. 2. [UNIX] An application program with arF    simple, "transparent" (typically text-stream) designed specificallyF    to be used in programmed combination with other tools (see FILTER).7    3. [MIT] v.i. To work; to study.  See HACK (def #9).   @ TOPS-10 (tops-ten) n. DEC's proprietary OS for the fabled PDP-10F    machines, long a favorite of hackers but now effectively extinct. AF    fountain of hacker folklore; see Appendix B. See also ITS, TOPS-20,!    TWENEX, VMS, OPERATING SYSTEM.   & TOPS-20 (tops-twen'tee) n. See TWENEX.  D TOURIST (too'rist) [from MIT's ITS system] n. A guest on the system,D    especially one who generally logs in over a network from a remote@    location for games and other trivial purposes. One step below@    LUSER. TOURISTIC is often used as a pejorative, as in "losing    touristic scum".e  D TOY (toy) n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers. 1. NICED    TOY One which supports the speaker's hacking style adequately. 2.C    JUST A TOY A machine that yields insufficient COMPUTRONS for the F    speaker's preferred uses (this is not condemnatory as is BITTY BOX,F    toys can at least be fun). See also GET A REAL COMPUTER, BITTY BOX.  C TOY PROBLEM (toy pro'blm) [AI] n. A deliberately simplified or evendD    oversimplified case of a challenging problem used to investigate,E    prototype, or test algorithms for the real problem. Sometimes used $    pejoratively.  See also GEDANKEN.  C TRAP (trap) 1. n. A program interrupt, usually used specifically to F    refer to an interrupt caused by some illegal action taking place inD    the user program.  In most cases the system monitor performs some?    action related to the nature of the illegality, then returnsaD    control to the program.  See UUO.  2. v. To cause a trap.  "These@    instructions trap to the monitor."  Also used transitively to:    indicate the cause of the trap.  "The monitor traps all    input/output instructions."  ; TRASH (trash) v. To destroy the contents of (said of a datas=    structure). The most common of the family of near-synonyms '    including MUNG, MANGLE and SCRIBBLE.n  @ TRIVIAL (tri'vi-@l) adj. 1. In explanation, too simple to bother>    detailing. 2. Not worth the speaker's time. 3. Complex, butF    solvable by methods so well-known that anyone not utterly CRETINOUSE    would have thought of them already. Hackers' notions of trivialitytF    may be quite at variance with those of non-hackers. See NONTRIVIAL,    UNINTERESTING.   F TROGLODYTE (trog'lo-diet) [Commodore] n. A hacker who never leaves his/    cubicle.  The term `Gnoll' is also reported.o  D TROGLODYTE MODE (trog'lo-diet mohd) [Rice University] n. ProgrammingA    with the lights turned off, sunglasses on, and the (character)tC    terminal inverted (black on white) because you've been up for sonD    many days straight that your eyes hurt. Loud music blaring from a@    stereo stacked in the corner is optional but recommended. See    LARVAL STAGE, MODE.  F TROJAN HORSE (troh'jn hors) n. A program designed to break security orF    damage a system that is disguised as something else benign, such as3    a directory lister or archiver. See VIRUS, WORM.   B TRUE-HACKER (troo-hak'r) [analogy with "trufan" from SF fandom] n.A    One who exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, esp. F    competence and helpfulness to other hackers. A high complement. "HeD    spent six hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBARF    4000 last week -- truly the act of a true-hacker." Compare DEMIGOD,    oppose MUNCHKIN.u  D TTY (tee-tee-wie [UNIX], titty [ITS]) n. 1. Terminal of the teletype?    variety, characterized by a noisy mechanical printer, a verytD    limited character set, and poor print quality.  Usage: antiquatedD    (like the TTYs themselves).  2. [especially UNIX] Any terminal atF    all; sometimes used to refer to the particular terminal controlling	    a job.e  G TUBE (t[y]oob) n. A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream sense of.>    TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons andF    Bullwinkle & Rocky and the occasional cheesy old swashbuckle movie.  ? TUNE (toon) [from automotive or musical usage] v. to optimize asD    program or system for a particular environment. One may `tune for;    time' (fastest execution) `tune for space' (least memorywB    utilization) or `tune for configuration' (most efficient use of+    hardware). See BUM, HOT SPOT, HAND-HACK.o  E TWEAK (tweek) v. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value.gA    Also used synonymously with TWIDDLE.  See FROBNICATE and FUDGEk
    FACTOR.  B TWENEX (twe'nex) n. The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC.  So namedF    because TOPS-10 was a typically crufty DEC operating system for the=    PDP-10.  BBN developed their own system, called TENEX (TENoF    EXecutive), and in creating TOPS-20 for the DEC-20 DEC copied TENEXF    and adapted it for the 20.  Usage: DEC people cringe when they hearE    TOPS-20 referred to as "Twenex", but the term seems to be catchingaC    on nevertheless.  Release 3 of TOPS-20 is sufficiently different E    from release 1 that some (not all) hackers have stopped calling itt?    TWENEX, though the written abbreviation "20x" is still used.P  ; TWIDDLE (twid'l) n. 1. tilde (ASCII 176, "~").  Also called E    "squiggle", "sqiggle" (sic--pronounced "skig'gul"), and "twaddle", >    but twiddle is by far the most common term.  2. A small and@    insignificant change to a program.  Usually fixes one bug andD    generates several new ones.  3. v. To change something in a smallF    way.  Bits, for example, are often twiddled.  Twiddling a switch orD    knob implies much less sense of purpose than toggling or tweaking    it; see FROBNICATE.  5 TWINK (twink) [UCSC] n. Equivalent to READ-ONLY USER.   F TWO-PI (too-pie, should be written with math symbols) q. The number ofC    years it takes to finish one's thesis.  Occurs in stories in thea;    form: "He started on his thesis; two pi years later...".o   			= U =  B UNINTERESTING (un-in'ter-est-ing) adj. 1. Said of a problem which,@    while NONTRIVIAL, can be solved simply by throwing sufficientA    resources at it. 2. Also said of problems for which a solutionfF    would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design andE    code. True hackers regard uninteresting problems as an intolerableoA    waste of time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals. Seee
    WOMBAT.  8 U*IX, UN*X n. Used to refer to the Unix operating systemF    (trademark and/or copyright AT&T) in writing, but avoiding the needB    for the ugly (tm) typography.  Also used to refer to any or allC    varieties of Unixoid operating systems. Ironically, some lawyerseB    now claim (1990) that the requirement for superscript-tm has no<    legal force, but yje asterisk usage is entrenched anyhow.  D UNWIND THE STACK (un-wiend' thuh stack) v. During the execution of aF    procedural language one is said to `unwind the stack' from a calledE    procedure up to a caller when one discards the stack frame and any A    number of frames above it, popping back up to the level of thetE    given caller.  In C this is done with longjmp/setjmp; in LISP withyF    THROW/CATCH.  This is sometimes necessary when handling exceptional)    conditions.  See also SMASH THE STACK.-  @ UNWIND-PROTECT (un-wiend'pr@-tekt) [MIT, from the name of a LISPF    operator] n. A task you must remember to perform before you leave aC    place or finish a project.  "I have an unwind-protect to call myL    advisor."  D UNIX (yoo'nix) [In the authors' words, "A weak pun on MULTICS"] n. AF    popular interactive time-sharing system originally invented in 1969F    by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left the MULTICS project, mostly soC    he could play SPACEWAR on a scavenged PDP7. The turning point iniE    UNIX's history came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C A    in 1974, making it the first source-portable operating system.xC    Fifteen years and a lot of changes later UNIX is the most widelytE    used multiuser general-purpose operating system in the world. ThiseD    fact probably represents the single most important victory yet ofC    hackerdom over industry opposition. See VERSION 7, BSD UNIX, USGT    UNIX.  D UP (uhp) adj. 1. Working, in order.  "The down escalator is up."  2.@    BRING UP: v. To create a working version and start it.  "They    brought up a down system."e  D UPLOAD [uhp'lohd] v. 1. To transfer code or data over a digital commE    line from a smaller `client' system to a larger `host' one. OpposenC    DOWNLOAD. 2.  [speculatively] To move the essential patterns andh>    algorithms which make up one's mind from one's brain into aA    computer.  Only those who are convinced that such patterns andr@    algorithms capture the complete essence of the self view this    prospect with aplomb.  ! URCHIN (er'chin) n. See MUNCHKIN.l  B USENET (yooz'net) n. A distributed bulletin board system supportedC    mainly by UNIX machines, international in scope and probably thenC    largest non-profit information utility in existence. As of earlyu?    1990 it hosts over 300 topic groups and distributes up to 15rF    megabytes of new technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and$    FLAMAGE every day. See NEWSGROUP.  E USER (yoo'zr) n. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.nA    One who asks questions.  Identified at MIT with "loser" by thejF    spelling "luser".  See REAL USER.  [Note by GLS: I don't agree withF    RF's definition at all.  Basically, there are two classes of peopleF    who work with a program: there are implementors (hackers) and usersF    (losers).  The users are looked down on by hackers to a mild degreeE    because they don't understand the full ramifications of the systemPE    in all its glory.  (A few users who do are known as real winners.)NB    It is true that users ask questions (of necessity).  Very often*    they are annoying or downright stupid.]  C USER FRIENDLY (yoo'zr fren'dlee) adj. Programmer-hostile. GenerallyyD    used by hackers in a hostile tone, to describe systems which holdC    the user's hand so obsessively that they make it painful for the,?    more experienced and knowledgeable to get any work done. Seeo    MENUITIS.  D USG UNIX (yoo-ess-jee yoo'nix) n. Refers to AT&T UNIX versions afterE    VERSION 7, especially System III and System V releases 1, 2 and 3. D    So called because at that time AT&T's support crew was called the%    `Unix Support Group' See BSD, UNIXN   			= V =  D VADDING (vad'ing) [permutation of ADV, an abbreviated form of ADVENTF    (q.v.)] n. A leisure-time activity of certain hackers involving theA    covert exploration of the "secret" parts of large buildings --tD    basements, roofs, freight elevators, maintenance crawlways, steamD    tunnels and the like. A few go so far as to learn locksmithing inC    order to synthesize vadding keys. The verb is `to vad'. The mosto?    extreme and dangerous form of vadding is ELEVATOR RODEO, akaeB    ELEVATOR SURFING, a sport played by using the escape hatches inF    elevator cars to move between pairs of them as they conjunct within,    the shafts. Kids, don't try this at home!  A VANILLA (v@-nil'luh) adj. Ordinary flavor, standard.  See FLAVOR. ?    When used of food, very often does not mean that the food ispA    flavored with vanilla extract!  For example, "vanilla-flavoreda@    wonton soup" (or simply "vanilla wonton soup") means ordinary7    wonton soup, as opposed to hot and sour wonton soup.   D VAPORWARE (vay-per-weir) n. Products announced far in advance of any7    shipment (which may or may not actually take place).3  7 VAR (veir) n. Short for "variable". Compare ARG, PARAM.   C VAX n. (vaks) [allegedly from Virtual Extended Architecture] 1. The D    most successful minicomputer design in industry history, possiblyC    excepting its immediate ancestor the PDP-11. Between its releaseCD    in 1978 and eclipse by KILLER MICROS after about 1986 the VAX wasC    probably the favorite hacker machine of them all, esp. after theaA    1982 release of 4.2BSD UNIX (see BSD UNIX). Esp. noted for itsCA    large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction set, an assetfE    which became a liability after the RISC revolution following abouteB    1985. 2. A major brand of vacuum cleaner in Britain. Cited here@    because its sales pitch, "Nothing sucks like a VAX!" became a(    sort of battle-cry of RISC partisans.  B VAXEN (vak'sn) [from "oxen", perhaps influenced by "vixen"] n. pl.0    The plural of VAX (a DEC machine). See BOXEN.  B VEEBLEFESTER (vee'b@l-fes-tr) [Commodore] n.  Any obnoxious personA    engaged in the alleged professions of marketing or management.i/    Antonym of HACKER. Compare SUIT, MARKETROID.   D VENUS FLYTRAP (vee'n:s flie'trap) [after the plant] n. See FIREWALL.  - VERBIAGE (ver'bee-@j) [IBM] n. Documentation.h  ; VERSION 7 (ver'zh@n se'vn) alt. V7 (vee-se'v@n) n. The 1978i>    unsupported release of UNIX (q.v.) ancestral to all currentF    commercial versions. Before the release of the POSIX/SVID standardsC    V7's features were often treated as a UNIX portability baseline.w    See BSD, USG UNIX, UNIX.e  B VIRGIN (ver'jn) adj. Unused, in reference to an instantiation of aB    program.  "Let's bring up a virgin system and see if it crashesD    again."  Also, by extension, unused buffers and the like within a    program.y  E VIRUS (vie'r@s) [from SF] n. A cracker program that propagates itself ?    by `infecting' (embedding itself in) other trusted programs,t8    especially operating systems. See WORM, TROJAN HORSE.  D VMS (vee em ess) n. DEC's proprietary operating system for their VAX?    minicomputer; one of the seven or so environments that loomsSF    largest in hacker folklore.  Many UNIX fans generously concede thatD    VMS would probably be the hacker's favorite commercial OS if UNIXC    didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious. See alsoy    TOPS-10, TOPS-20, UNIX.  D VIRTUAL (ver'tyoo-uhl) adj. 1. Common alternative to LOGICAL (q.v.),>    but never used with compass directions.  2.  Performing theA    functions of.  Virtual memory acts like real memory but isn't.s  > VIRTUAL REALITY (ver'tyoo-@l) n. A form of network interactionD    incorporating aspects of role-playing games, interactive theater,@    improvisational comedy and "true confessions" magazines. In aD    "virtual reality" forum (such as USENET's alt.callahans newsgroup>    or the MUD experiments on Internet) interaction between theE    participants is written like a shared novel complete with scenery, C    "foreground characters" which may be personae utterly unlike theM<    people who write them, and common "background characters"C    manipulable by all parties. The one iron law is that you may noteC    write irreversible changes to a character without the consent of.@    the person who "owns" it.  Otherwise anything goes. See BAMF.  F VISIONARY (viz-yuhn-eir-ee) n. One who hacks vision (in an AI context,,    such as the processing of visual images).  E VULCAN NERVE PINCH (vuhl'kn nerv pinch) n. [From the old Star Trek TV D    series via Commodore Amiga hackers] The keyboard combination thatF    forces a soft-boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support    such a feature).n   			= W =  G WABBIT (wabb'it) [almost certainly from Elmer Fudd's immortal line "youM@    wascal wabbit!"] n. 1. A legendary early hack reported on the>    PDP-10s at RPI and elsewhere around 1978. The program wouldD    reproduce itself twice every time it was run, eventually crashing@    the system.  2. By extension, any hack that includes infinite?    self-replication but is not a VIRUS or WORM. See also COOKIE     MONSTER.   E WALDO (wahl'doh) [probably taken from the story "Waldo", by Heinlein,iF    which is where the term was first used to mean a mechanical adjunctE    to a human limb] Used at Harvard, particularly by Tom Cheatham ande?    students, instead of FOOBAR as a meta-syntactic variable ande6    general nonsense word.  See FOO, BAR, FOOBAR, QUUX.  > WALKING DRIVES (wahk'ing drievz) An occasional failure mode of@    magnetic-disk drives back in the days when they were 14" wideA    WASHING MACHINES. Those old DINOSAURS carried terrific angular E    momentum; the combination of a misaligned spindle or worn bearingssA    and stick-slip interactions with the floor could cause them tonD    "walk" across a room, lurching alternate corners forward a coupleB    of millimeters at a time. This could also be induced by certainF    patterns of drive access (a fast seek across the whole width of theE    disk, followed by a slow seek in the other direction). It is knownt@    that some bands of old-time hackers figured out how to induceA    disk-accessing patterns that would do this to particular drivex9    models and held disk-drive races.  This is not a joke!M  E WALL (wahl) [shortened form of HELLO WALL, apparently from the phraseM?    "up against a blank wall"] [WPI] interj. 1. An indication of C    confusion, usually spoken with a quizzical tone.  "Wall??"  2. A 8    request for further explication. Compare OCTAL FORTY.  D WALL TIME (wahl tiem) n. 1. `Real world' time (what the clock on theD    wall shows) as opposed to the system clock's idea of time. 2. TheE    real running time of a program, as opposed to the number of CLOCKS.E    required to execute it (on a timesharing system these will differ, *    as no one program gets all the CLOCKS).  = WALLPAPER (wahl pay'pr) n. A file containing a listing (e.g.,o<    assembly listing) or transcript, esp. a file containing aD    transcript of all or part of a login session.  (The idea was that@    the LPT paper for such listings was essentially good only forE    wallpaper, as evidenced at SAIL where it was used as such to cover F    windows.)  Usage: not often used now, esp. since other systems haveB    developed other terms for it (e.g., PHOTO on TWENEX).  The termB    possibly originated on ITS, where the commands to begin and end?    transcript files were :WALBEG and :WALEND, with default fileg    DSK:WALL PAPER.  ? WASHING MACHINE (wash'ing m@-sheen') n. Old-style hard disks ine@    floor-standing cabinets. So called because of the size of the?    cabinet and the "top-loading" access to the media packs. See     WALKING DRIVES.  C WEDGED (wejd) [from "head wedged up ass"] adj. 1. To be in a lockedsD    state, incapable of proceeding without help.  (See GRONK.)  Often>    refers to humans suffering misconceptions.  "The swapper isD    wedged."  This term is sometimes used as a synonym for DEADLOCKEDF    (q.v.).  2. [UNIX] Specifically used to describe the state of a TTYF    left in a losing state by abort of a screen-oriented program or one@    that has messed with the line discipline in some obscure way.  B WEEDS (weeds) n. Refers to development projects or algorithms thatC    have no possible relevance or practical application.  Comes fromcB    "off in the weeds".  Used in phrases like "lexical analysis for!    microcode is serious weeds...".  D WELL BEHAVED (wel-bee-hayvd') adj. Of software: conforming to codingF    guidelines and standards.  Well behaved software uses the operatingD    system to do chores such as keyboard input, allocating memory and(    drawing graphics. Oppose ILL-BEHAVED.  @ WETWARE (wet'weir) n. 1. The human brain, as opposed to computerE    hardware or software (as in "Wetware has at most 7 registers"). 2. F    Human beings (programmers, operators, administrators) attached to aD    computer system, as opposed to the system's hardware or software.  E WHAT (hwuht) n. The question mark character ("?").  See QUES.  Usage:i3    rare, used particularly in conjunction with WOW.n  @ WHEEL (hweel) [from Twenex, q.v.] n. A privileged user or WIZARDC    (sense #2).  Now spreading into the UNIX culture. Privilege bitstF    are sometimes called WHEEL BITS. The state of being in a privileged(    logon is sometimes called WHEEL MODE.  @ WHEEL WARS (hweel worz) [Stanford University] A period in LARVALE    STAGE during which student wheels hack each other by attempting torB    log each other out of the system, delete each other's files, orE    otherwise wreak havoc, usually at the expense of the lesser users.o  4 WHITE BOOK, THE (hwiet buk) n. Kernighan & Ritchie'sA    _The_C_Programming_Language_, esp. the classic and influential.C    first edition. Also called simply "K&R". See SILVER BOOK, PURPLEB    BOOK, ORANGE BOOK.h  C WIBNI [Bell Labs, Wouldn't It Be Nice If] n. What most requirementsi?    documents/specifications consist entirely of. Compare IWBNI.a  C WIMP ENVIRONMENT n. [acronymic from Window, Icon, Mouse, Pointer] A)F   graphical-user-interface based environmend, as described by a hackerH   who prefers command-line interfaces for their superior flexibility and   extensibility.  C WIN (win) [from MIT jargon] 1. v. To succeed.  A program wins if nosF    unexpected conditions arise.  2. BIG WIN: n. Serendipity.  EmphaticF    forms: MOBY WIN, SUPER WIN, HYPER-WIN (often used interjectively asA    a reply).  For some reason SUITABLE WIN is also common at MIT,PE    usually in reference to a satisfactory solution to a problem.  Seee    LOSE.  F WINNAGE (win'@j) n. The situation when a lossage is corrected, or when>    something is winning.  Quite rare.  Usage: also quite rare.  = WINNER (win'r) 1. n. An unexpectedly good situation, program,eC    programmer or person.  2. REAL WINNER: Often sarcastic, but alsoe    used as high praise.l  ? WINNITUDE (win'i-tood) n. The quality of winning (as opposed tobC    WINNAGE, which is the result of winning).  "That's really great!I    Boy, what winnitude!"  ? WIREHEAD (wier'hed) n. 1. A hardware hacker, especially one wholB    concentrates on communications hardware.  2. An expert in localC    area networks.  A wirehead can be a network software wizard too, B    but will always have the ability to deal with network hardware,A    down to the smallest component.  Wireheads are known for their F    ability to lash up an Ethernet terminator from spare resistors, for    example.F  ? WIZARD (wiz'rd) n. 1. A person who knows how a complex piece of D    software or hardware works; someone who can find and fix his bugsF    in an emergency.  Rarely used at MIT, where HACKER is the preferred@    term.  2. A person who is permitted to do things forbidden toD    ordinary people, e.g., a "net wizard" on a TENEX may run programsD    which speak low-level host-imp protocol; an ADVENT wizard at SAILA    may play Adventure during the day. 3. A UNIX expert. See GURU.l  D WIZARD MODE (wiz'rd mohd) [from nethack] n. A special access mode ofC    a program or system, usually passworded, that permits some userso@    godlike privileges.  Generally not used for operating systems>    themselves (ROOT MODE or WHEEL MODE would be used instead).  B WOMBAT (wom'bat) [Waste Of Money, Brains and Time] adj. Applied toE    problems which are both profoundly UNINTERESTING in themselves andfD    unlikely to benefit anyone interesting even if solved. Often usedF    in fanciful constructions such as WRESTLING WITH A WOMBAT. See also    CRAWLING HORROR.l  D WONKY (won'kee) [from Australian slang] adj. Yet another approximate@    synonym for BROKEN. Specifically connotes a malfunction whichD    produces behavior seen as crazy, humorous, or amusingly perverse.<    "That was the day the printer's font logic went wonky andD    everybody's listings came out in Elvish". Also in WONKED OUT. See	    FUNKY.e  E WORM (werm) [from `tapeworm' in John Brunner's _Shockwave_Rider_, via A    XEROX PARC] n. A cracker program that propagates itself over anC    network, reproducing itself as it goes. See `VIRUS'. Perhaps the[F    best known example was RTM's `Internet Worm' in '87, a `benign' oneC    that got out of control and shut down hundreds of Suns and VAXena-    nationwide.  See VIRUS, TROJAN HORSE, ICE.N   WOW (wow) See EXCL.t  C WRONG THING, THE (rahng thing, dh@) n. A design, action or decision-B    which is clearly incorrect or inappropriate. Often capitalized;D    always emphasized in speech as if capitalized. Antonym: THE RIGHT    THING (q.v.).  @ WUGGA WUGGA (wuh'guh wuh'guh) n. Imaginary sound that a computer?    program makes as it labors with a tedious or difficult task. $    Compare CRUNCHA CHRUNCHA CRUNCHA.   			= X =  B X (eks) Used in various speech and writing contexts in roughly its?    algebraic sense of "unknown within a set defined by context" @    (compare `N'). Thus: the abbreviation 680x0 stands for 68000,B    68010, 68020, 68030 or 68040, and 80x86 stands for 80186, 80286?    80386 or 80486 (note that a UNIX hacker might write these asr?    680[01234]0 and 80[1234]86 or 680?00 and 80?86 respectively,r    see REGULAR EXPRESSIONS).  B XYZZY (exs-wie-zee-zee-wie) [from the ADVENT game] adj. See PLUGH.   			= Y =  @ YOW! (yow) [from Zippy the Pinhead comix] interj. Favored hackerD    expression of humorous surprise or emphasis. "Yow! Check out whatA    happens when you twiddle the foo option on this display hack!"n     Compare GURFLE, MUMBLE FROTZ.  C YOYO MODE (yoh'yoh mohd) n. State in which the system is said to beeF    when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being    down.  B YU-SHIANG WHOLE FISH (yoo-shyang hohl fish) n. The character gammaE    (extended SAIL ASCII 11), which with a loop in its tail looks likepD    a fish.  Usage: used primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine.<    Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it    second-hand.    			= Z =  B ZEN (zen) v. To figure out something by meditation, or by a sudden:    flash of enlightenment. Originally applied to bugs, butB    occasionally applied to problems of life in general. "How'd you@    figure out the buffer allocation problem?" "Oh, I zenned it".  E ZERO (zee'roh) v. 1. To set to zero.  Usually said of small pieces of.A    data, such as bits or words.  2. To erase; to discard all dataoA    from.  Said of disks and directories, where "zeroing" need not D    involve actually writing zeroes throughout the area being zeroed.    See SCRIBBLE.  < ZIPPERHEAD (zip'r-hed) [IBM] n. A person with a closed mind.  F ZOMBIE (zom'bee) [UNIX] n. A process which has been killed but has notB    yet relinquished its process table slot. These show up in ps(1)    listings occasionally.N  @ ZORK (zork) n. Second of the great early experiments in computerC    fantasy gaming, see ADVENT. Originally written on MIT-DMS duringu:    the late seventies, later distributed with BSD UNIX and3    commercialized as "The Zork Trilogy" by Infocom.r  L ==================== MAIN TEXT ENDS HERE ===================================   APPENDIX A:t) 		THE UNTIMELY DEMISE OF MABEL THE MONKEY  			a cautionary tale  G    The following, modulo a couple of inserted commas and capitalizationtF changes for readability, is the exact text of a famous USENET message.I The reader may wish to review the definitions of PM and MOUNT in the mains text before continuing.a   Date: Wed 3 Sep 86 16:46:31-EDT % From: "Art Evans" <Evans@TL-20B.ARPA>r& Subject: Always Mount a Scratch Monkey To: Risks@CSL.SRI.COMe  C My friend Bud used to be the intercept man at a computer vendor forlF calls when an irate customer called.  Seems one day Bud was sitting at his desk when the phone rang.a     +     Bud:	Hello.			Voice:	YOU KILLED MABEL!!e)     B:		Excuse me?		V:	YOU KILLED MABEL!!i  G This went on for a couple of minutes and Bud was getting nowhere, so he . decided to alter his approach to the customer.     7     B:		HOW DID I KILL MABEL?	V:	YOU PM'ED MY MACHINE!!,  J Well, to avoid making a long story even longer, I will abbreviate what hadJ happened.  The customer was a Biologist at the University of Blah-de-blah,L and he had one of our computers that controlled gas mixtures that Mabel (theK monkey) breathed.  Now, Mabel was not your ordinary monkey.  The University)J had spent years teaching Mabel to swim, and they were studying the effectsI that different gas mixtures had on her physiology.  It turns out that theRC repair folks had just gotten a new Calibrated Power Supply (used totF calibrate analog equipment), and at their first opportunity decided toL calibrate the D/A converters in that computer.  This changed some of the gasJ mixtures and poor Mabel was asphyxiated.  Well, Bud then called the branch manager for the repair folks:a       Manager:	Hello>     B:		This is Bud, I heard you did a PM at the University of     		Blah-de-blah.l>     M:		Yes, we really performed a complete PM.  What can I do
 		for you?     B:		Can you swim?h  G The moral is, of course, that you should always mount a scratch monkey.a  $               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  C There are several morals here related to risks in use of computers.-C Examples include, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."  However, thenB cautious philosophical approach implied by "always mount a scratch/ monkey" says a lot that we should keep in mind.   	 Art Evansi Tartan Labs    APPENDIX B:   ' 	OBSOLESCENT TERMS FROM THE JARGON FILEe  C    The following terms appeared in the main listing of the original A Jargon File, but have been rendered obsolescent by the passage of(C time, the march of technology, the death of the DEC PDP-10, and thetB May 1990 shutdown of the ITS machines. They are collected here for possible historical interest.c  = AOS (aus (East coast) ay-ahs (West coast)) [based on a PDP-10sA    increment instruction] v. To increase the amount of something.eE    "Aos the campfire."  Usage: considered silly, and now obsolescent.e+    See SOS. Now largely supplanted by BUMP."  @ BIG BLT, THE (big belt, th:) n., obs. Shuffling operation on theB    PDP-10 under some operating systems that consumes a significant8    amount of computer time. See BLT in the main listing.  E BIN (bin) [short for BINARY; used as a second file name on ITS] 1. n.rA    BINARY.  2. BIN FILE: A file containing the BIN for a program. A    Usage: used at MIT, which runs on ITS.  The equivalent term atV?    Stanford was DMP (pronounced "dump") FILE.  Other names usedmC    include SAV ("save") FILE (DEC and Tenex), SHR ("share") and LOW B    FILES (DEC), and COM FILES (CP/M), and EXE ("ex'ee") FILE (DEC,E    Twenex, MS-DOS, occasionally UNIX).  Also in this category are theaA    input files to the various flavors of linking loaders (LOADER,C;    LINK-10, STINK), called REL FILES. See EXE in main text.c  D COM[M] MODE (kom mohd) [from the ITS feature for linking two or moreA    terminals together so that text typed on any is echoed on all, D    providing a means of conversation among hackers; spelled with one.    or two Ms] Syn. for TALK MODE in main text.  @ DIABLO (dee-ah'blow) [from the Diablo printer] 1. n. Any letter-C    quality printing device.  2. v. To produce letter-quality outputx0    from such a device. See LASE in main listing.   DMP (dump)  See BIN.  A DPB (duh-pib') [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v., obs. To plopr     something down in the middle.  D ENGLISH (ing'lish) n. The source code for a program, which may be inD    any language, as opposed to BINARY.  Usage: obsolete, used mostly@    by old-time hackers, though recognizable in context.  On ITS,B    directory SYSENG was where the "English" for system programs isC    kept, and SYSBIN, the binaries.  SAIL had many such directories,o&    but the canonical one is [CSP,SYS].  D EXCH (ex'chuh, ekstch) [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v., obs. To+    exchange two things, each for the other.   ? IMPCOM (imp'kahm) See TELNET. This term is now nearly obsolete.m  C IRP (erp) [from the MIDAS pseudo-op which generates a block of code=C    repeatedly, substituting in various places the car and/or cdr of C    the list(s) supplied at the IRP] v. To perform a series of tasks D    repeatedly with a minor substitution each time through.  "I guessE    I'll IRP over these homework papers so I can give them some random :    grade for this semester." Usage: rare, now obsolescent.  E JFCL (djif'kl or djafik'l) [based on the PDP-10 instruction that acts F    as a fast no-op] v., obs. To cancel or annul something.  "Why don't    you jfcl that out?"  ? JRST (jerst) [based on the PDP-10 jump instruction] v., obs. To C    suddenly change subjects.  Usage: rather rare.  "Jack be nimble,s3    Jack be quick; Jack jrst over the candle stick."l  D JSYS (jay'sis), pl. JSI (jay'sigh) [Jump to SYStem] v.,obs. See UUO.  F LDB (lid'dib) [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v. To extract from the
    middle.  F MOBY (moh'bee) n.  This term entered the world of AI with the FabritekF    256K moby memory of MIT-AI. Thus, classically, 256K words, the sizeB    of a PDP-10 moby.  (The maximum address space means the maximumC    normally addressable space, as opposed to the amount of physicaleA    memory a machine can have.  Thus the MIT PDP-10s each have twooE    mobies, usually referred to as the "low moby" (0-777777) and "highkD    moby" (1000000-1777777), or as "moby 0" and "moby 1".  MIT-AI hadF    four mobies of address space: moby 2 was the PDP-6 memory, and mobyD    3 the PDP-11 interface.)  In this sense "moby" is often used as aF    generic unit of either address space (18. bits' worth) or of memoryE    (about a megabyte, or 9/8 megabyte (if one accounts for differencer;    between 32.- and 36.-bit words), or 5/4 megacharacters)..  > PHANTOM (fan'tm) [Stanford] n. The SAIL equivalent of a DRAGON@    (q.v.).  Typical phantoms include the accounting program, theA    news-wire monitor, and the lpt and xgp spoolers. UNIX and mostaE    other environments call this sort of program a background DEMON ora
    DAEMON.  F PPN (pip'in) [DEC terminology, short for Project-Programmer Number] n.C    1. A combination `project' (directory name) and programmer name,fE    used to identify a specific directory belonging to that user.  For'F    instance, "FOO,BAR" would be the FOO directory for user BAR.  SinceB    the name is restricted to three letters, the programmer name isF    usually the person's initials, though sometimes it is a nickname orD    other special sequence.  (Standard DEC setup is to have two octalB    numbers instead of characters; hence the original acronym.)  2.E    Often used loosely to refer to the programmer name alone.  "I wantgD    to send you some mail; what's your ppn?"  Usage: not used at MIT,E    since ITS does not use ppn's.  The equivalent terms would be UNAMEED    and SNAME, depending on context, but these are not used except in    their technical senses.  D REL (rel) See BIN in the main listing. Short for `relocatable', used    on the old TOPS-10 OS."   SAV (sayv)  See BIN.   SHR (sheir)  See BIN.W  F SOS 1. (ess-oh-ess) n. A losing editor, SON OF STOPGAP.  2. (sahss) v.3    Inverse of AOS, from the PDP-10 instruction set.u  D STY (pronounced "stie", not spelled out) n. A pseudo-teletype, whichF    is a two-way pipeline with a job on one end and a fake keyboard-ttyD    on the other.  Also, a standard program which provides a pipeline?    from its controlling tty to a pseudo-teletype (and thence toe<    another tty, thereby providing a "sub-tty").  This is MITB    terminology; the SAIL, DEC and UNIX equivalent is PTY (see main	    text).t  D SUPDUP (soop'doop) v. To communicate with another ARPAnet host usingF    the SUPDUP program, which is a SUPer-DUPer TELNET talking a specialC    display protocol used mostly in talking to ITS sites.  Sometimese    abbreviated to SD.o  C TECO (tee'koh) [acronym for Text Editor and COrrector] 1. n. A textdE    editor developed at MIT, and modified by just about everybody.  IfnD    all the dialects are included, TECO might well be the single mostE    prolific editor in use.  Noted for its powerful pseudo-programminghF    features and its incredibly hairy syntax.  2. v. obs. To edit usingB    the TECO editor in one of its infinite forms; sometimes used toA    mean "to edit" even when not using TECO!  Usage: rare at SAIL,.;    where most people wouldn't touch TECO with a TENEX pole.U  C    [Historical note, c. 1982: DEC grabbed an ancient version of MITHC    TECO many years ago when it was still a TTY-oriented editor.  Bye@    now, TECO at MIT is highly display-oriented and is actually aC    language for writing editors, rather than an editor.  Meanwhile, F    the outside world's various versions of TECO remain almost the same@    as the MIT version of the early 1970s.  DEC recently tried toC    discourage its use, but an underground movement of sorts kept itt    alive. - GLS]  C    [Since this note was written I found out that DEC tried to forceeB    their hackers by administrative decision to use a hacked up andA    generally lobotomized version of SOS instead of TECO, and theyn    revolted. - MRC]e  F    [1990 update: TECO is now pretty much one with the dust of history,F    having been replaced (both functionally and psychologically) almost"    everywhere by GNU EMACS -- ESR]  C UUO (yoo-yoo-oh) [short for "Un-Used Operation"] n. A PDP-10 systemcB    monitor call.  The term "Un-Used Operation" comes from the factD    that, on PDP-10 systems, monitor calls are implemented as invalidD    or illegal machine instructions, which cause traps to the monitorC    (see TRAP).  The SAIL manual describing the available UUOs has a F    cover picture showing an unidentified underwater object.  See YOYO.F    [Note: DEC sales people have since decided that "Un-Used Operation"E    sounds bad, so UUO now stands for "Unimplemented User Operation".]uD    Tenex and Twenex systems use the JSYS machine instruction (q.v.),B    which is halfway between a legal machine instruction and a UUO,C    since KA-10 Tenices implement it as a hardware instruction whichrE    can be used as an ordinary subroutine call (sort of a "pure JSR").   B WORMHOLE (werm'hohl) n. A location in a monitor which contains theF    address of a routine, with the specific intent of making it easy toB    substitute a different routine.  The following quote comes from(    "Polymorphic Systems", vol. 2, p. 54:  E    "Any type of I/O device can be substituted for the standard devicelD    by loading a simple driver routine for that device and installing4    its address in one of the monitor's `wormholes.'*
    ---------- @    *The term `wormhole' has been used to describe a hypotheticalC    astronomical situation where a black hole connects to the `other B    side' of the universe.  When this happens, information can passE    through the wormhole, in only one direction, much as `assumptions'l&    pass down the monitor's wormholes."  F    This term is now obsolescent. Modern operating systems use clustersB    of wormholes extensively (for modularization of I/O handling inA    particular, as in the UNIX device-driver organization) but the @    preferred jargon for these clusters is `device tables', `jump"    tables' or `capability tables'.  E XGP (eks-jee) 1. n. Xerox Graphics Printer.  2. v. To print somethingU6    on the XGP.  "You shouldn't XGP such a large file."  F YOYO (yoh'yoh) n. DEC service engineers' slang for UUO (q.v.).  Usage:9    rare at Stanford and MIT, has been found at random DECf    installations.s  O ======================= END OF THE JARGON FILE ================================)